Peloponnesus: notes of study and travel

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PELOPONNESUS

NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

PELOPONNESUS:

NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

BY

WILLIAM GEORGE CLARK, M.A.,

FELLOW AND TUTOR OF TRINITY COLLEGE,
CAMBRIDGE.

LONDON^
JOHN W. PARKER AND SON, WEST STRAND.

1858.

SThe Author reserves the riqht offrnnsMion.]

LONDON :

SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET,

COVENT GARDEN.

TO

GEORGE FINLAY, Esq., LL.D.

THIS VOLUME

IS DEDICATED,

IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF MUCH KINDNESS SHOWN
TO THE AUTHOR.

Tbinitt College, Cambbidge,
May 29, 1858.

PREFACE.

r PHE second title which I have given to my book indi-
cates its character and limits its pretensions. While
on the one hand it is so far from exhausting the copious
theme ' Peloponnesus/ that it leaves many places and
many questions untouched, or only casually alludes to
them, on the other hand it claims, within its limited
scope, to be the product of personal observation and inde-
pendent research. I had no ambition to add one more
to the multitude of Travellers' books, but I chose the
narrative form as the most convenient mode of connecting
together a mass of observations and reflections otherwise
desultory and inconsequent.

I have endeavoured to select such topics, and so to
treat them, as, if possible, to interest not merely archae-
ologists, but educated men generally. I have wished to
make the book grave in substance and light in manner.
This is, I know, a hazardous experiment. In aiming at
both objects I run great risk of hitting neither, and may
tind that the book appears trivial to the one class and
pedantic to the other.

Vlii PREFACE.

During the tour I was occupied in comparing local
features and extant remains with the conclusions of
Colonel Leake and the testimony of ancient authors,
especially Pausanias. In this task I was materially aided
by the large French map ; and I had throughout the
advantage of the counsels of my friend and fellow-
traveller Professor Thompson.

In writing the book my plan has been the same. I
have deliberately abstained from consulting more recent
writers on the subject. Where, for special reasons, I have
deviated from this rule, I have always mentioned the
author referred to. If I had discussed all the theories
broached by modern travellers and scholars, I should
have given my text an air of controversy or of commen-
tary, and overloaded my notes with references, which
would indeed have been ' caviare to the general.'

I shall no doubt discover that many of the views put
forward here as original, have been already propounded or
controverted in other works. 1 Even so, in the one case, the
truth will be confirmed by an additional and independent

1 For instance, I now find that the dissenters from the received
view as to the destination of the underground chambers at Mycenae,
have been more numerous than I was aware of. Among them are
Dr. E. D. Clarke and Colonel Mure.

I take this opportunity of apologizing for having inadvertently
attributed to Colonel Mure an opinion as to the identity of the
Erasinus with the river at Stympkalus, which is really due to Colonel
Leake.

PREFACE. IX

witness ; in the other case, my arguments must go for
what they are worth. Having spent the best part of my
life in studies connected with ancient Greece, I have, per-
haps, as much right to form and express a judgment of
my own as others who have trodden in the steps of
Colonel Leake.

All are but gleaners after him. It is indeed impossible
to ignore or depreciate the services which he has rendered
to Greek geography, archaeology, and literature. His
truthfulness, his sagacity, his diligence, and his learning
are above all praise. I am the more anxious to make
this avowal as, otherwise, I might be supposed by a hasty
reader to have written in a spirit of antagonism. But
the fact is, that while I have dwelt upon those points on
which I ventured to differ from him, I have passed over
in silence the far greater number of cases in which I
assented to his views. Not unfrequently I have been
indebted to him for the data which enabled me to combat
his conclusions.

The most experienced and accurate of travellers cannot
claim exemption from error. Notes written hastily and
under difficulties are reduced to form after a multitude
of novel sights, a constant change of scene, and a succes-
sion of days crowded with various incidents, have inter-
vened to perplex and disturb the memory. Every travel-
ler who writes a book, has on this score to ask for the
indulgence of his readers, especially of such as put it to

X PREFACE.

the severe test of reading it in the country of which it
treats. I have done what I could to guard against inac-
curacy. My descriptions were for the most part written
on the spot. I have seldom altered the original rough
phrases of my note-book for the sake of rounding a sen-
tence, and never preferred antithesis to fidelity.

In speaking of the modern Greeks, I have borne in
mind how liable a foreigner is to misinterpret such man-
ners and customs as are strange to him ; and I have not
ventured upon any general and sweeping assertions unless
they were corroborated by the authority of some one
more entitled by long residence in the country to speak
positively of its people. I have set down nothing in
malice, and nothing, I trust, in haste.

CONTEN T S.

CHAPTER I.

01 TWARD BOUND 1

CHAPTER II.

FROM ATHENS TO MEGARA . 27

CHAPTER III.

THE ISTHMUS — CORINTH ±2

CHAPTER IV.

NEMEA, MYCENAE, AND TIRYNS 61

CHAPTER V.

ARGOS, AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD .... 90

xii CONTENTS.

A GREEK CHURCH

KARYA

CHAPTER VI. fags
104

CHAPTER VII.

. . 114

CHAPTER VIII.

NESTANE AND MANTINEA l^ 5

CHAPTER IX.

FROM TRIPOLITZA BY TEGEA TO SPARTA . . 142

CHAPTER X.

SPARTA 158

CHAPTER XI.

XEROKAMPO— A DIGRESSION 174

CHAPTER XII.

TAYGETUS 189

CHAPTER XIII.

KALAMATA— THE HOMERIC PHER.E

199

CONTENTS. xiii

CHAPTER XIV. PAGE

NAVARINO 214

CHAPTER XV.
VOURKAMO — MESSBNE — MAVROZOUMENO . . . 228

CHAPTER XVI.

THE BLACK DEMETER — EIRA 243

CHAPTER XVII.

PHIGALEA — BASS.E 254

CHAPTER XVIII.

FROM ANDR1TZENA BY OLYMPIA TO PYRGO . . 262

CHAPTER XIX.

THE PLAIN OF ELIS — PATRAS 275

CHAPTER XX.

YOSTIZZA — MEGASPELION 288

CHAPTER XXI.
STYX 301

XIV CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XXII. PAGE

PHENEOS — STYMPHALUS 315

CHAPTER XXIII.

ALBANIANS, SCLAVONIANS, AND HELLENES . . 324

CHAPTER XXIV.
STCYON 337

LIST OF MAPS.

1. PELOPONNESUS.

2. THE ISTHMIAN HIERUM.

3. NESTANE AND MANTINEA.

4. SPARTA.

5. NAVARINO.

PELOPONNESUS.

CHAPTER I.

OUTWARD BOUND.

T7^ IGHTEEN centuries ago the remote and savage island
-'-^ of Britain was periodically visited by certain enter-
prising merchants of Marseilles engaged in the tin-trade.
These merchants were no doubt Greeks; for though Greece
had lost all political consequence and national spirit, yet
those who called themselves her children retained in their
hands the commerce of the Mediterranean and the world.
Adventurous from a restless temperament and love of gain,
with a keen instinct of self-preservation and a practised
dexterity that supplied the place of physical courage, un-
weighted with any prejudices in favour of truth and
honesty, the then Greeks far outstripped in commercial
enterprise and in commercial success their Roman
masters ; clumsy men, who could only be great en masse,
in an elephantine, imperial way, who conquered nations
and governed provinces, but could neither found firms nor
keep ledgers, whose foreign journeys were undertaken by
fifty thousands together, and resulted, it may be, in an
ovation or even a triumph, but yielded no tangible return,
much less an adequate profit for the outlay of time, men,
and capital. So, while aggregate Rome grew and grew,

B

A NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

and aggregate Hellas dwindled and dwindled, individual
Romans became poorer and poorer, individual Greeks
richer and richer. Politically, the former despised the
latter ; personally, they envied them ; and from this scorn
and envy sprang a hatred such as it has always been the
fortune of the Greeks to excite in the breasts of their
neighbours ; such as is felt for them at this present time
by the aborigines of Smyrna, Trieste, or [Manchester.
Doubtless those Cives Romani who were reduced to com-
merce, were often compelled to borrow money of the
gentile Shylocks, and repaid them with compound abuse.
In one notable instance the abuse was clothed in hexa-
meter measure, and has been preserved to our time.
Through the exaggerations of the satirist we can discern
the contour of the substantial truths which they enfold.
The Greekling of that day, under the impulse of want or
avarice, was ready for any enterprise however arduous,
any journey however distant. "Was there a demand for
tin, and would it leave a profit on importation, the Greek
was ready to start even for Britain. Such expedition did
he use, that in three months he returned safe and sound,
and was seen bustling about the principal stoa of Mar-
seilles, jingling the leathern purse he wore at his girdle,
and showing to all that listed his bran-new samples of
Cornish tin.

Our enterprising friend is accosted amongst others by
a stranger who is walking about with tablets in his
hand, on which he makes memoranda. The stranger's
accent shows that he is from Sicily. After a casual
glance at the specimens, he puts a string of questions
on matters not connected with the markets, out of mere

OUTWARD BOUND. 3

idle curiosity, about the strange island and its wild
people, &c, and receives the information that the natives
about the promontory of Belarion, the extreme south-
western corner of Britain, are, owing to their intercourse
with strangers, far more civilized than the other savages
of the island; that they have learnt the value of their tin,
are able to dig it out themselves, and cart it across the
sands to Iktis — an island at high tide — f whence/ says the
merchant, c we ship it for the opposite coast of Galatia '
(meaning Gaul) . ( "We thence bring it on pack-horses in
thirty days to Marseilles. And now, stranger, how much
do ye bid, per Attic talent, for the tin?' The stranger
declines to make a bid, pockets his tablets and walks away,
to the infinite disgust of our friend, who finds that he has
been wasting his time and breath on a fellow who proves
to be a historian or geographer, or something of the sort,
one of that purblind tribe who are the disgrace of the
nation, and who do not see that the true, lasting greatness
of the Greek race rests on their success in commercial
speculation.

The scene I have described is not altogether imaginary.
I will not vouch for the exact place and time, but some-
thing like my description certainly did happen somewhere
about Marseilles in the reign of Augustus Csesar. What
the merchant's name was, I cannot tell you ; the stranger's
name was Diodorus. 1

1 Diodorus Siculus, b. v. p. 301. In the place which he called
Iktis, where the tin depot was, he seems to have blended the charac-
teristic features of the Isle of Portland and St. Michael's Mount, and
then to have baptized the compound by the name belonging rightfully
to the Isle of Wight.

B 2

h NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

In those days, then, the trader laden with British tin
made his way from the shore of the Channel to Marseilles
in thirty days. The modern traveller not similarly en-
cumbered performs the journey in about the same number
of hours ; so brief is the space which, thanks to mecha-
nical science, separates the most westerly of Greek cities
from the land whose very existence was unsuspected by
Herodotus and whose whereabouts, jealously concealed by
the Phenician merchants, anxious to monopolize the trade,
long continued unknown to their rivals. The Greek who
at length discovered the secret was himself a native of
Marseilles, by name Pytheas. 1 How would he have mar-
velled if the gods of Delphi and Dodona could in very
truth have pierced through the veil of futurity, and had told
him that that land was to be the cradle of a race which,
in courage, perseverance, and tenacious nationality should
be the Hellenes of a new world ; that at a time when,
with rare exceptions, the famous cities of Hellas should
be abandoned to the encroaching sea, the gathering sand-
dunes and the growing thicket, Britain should be the seat
of cities many times greater than the greatest, and many
times wealthier than the wealthiest of those old cities ;
the metropolis of an empire wider than the dreams of
Alcibiades, or the achievements of Alexander; and the
centre of a commerce to which the ocean should be no
longer the dreadful limit, but the familiar highway. The
descendants of those rude barbarians might now without
presumption expound Thucydides to the citizens of Athens.
They visit Greece with the feeling of pilgrims eager to pay

1 Plin. N. S. ii. 75.

OUTWARD BOUND.

their devotions at the holy places of literature and philo-
sophy and art ; and they gather, for the decoration of their
homes, mutilated fragments of Hellenic art, at a lavish
cost which would have staggered Pericles and Phidias.
But I need not dwell upon facts patent to all, or illustrate
a contrast so obvious. I touch upon the subject only
because it is one of those commonplaces which inevitably
occupy the mind of the student and the traveller, tedious
if dilated on, but which it were affectation to omit.

Except the scanty fragments collected in its museum,
Marseilles contains, I believe, not a vestige of Greek, or
even Roman, antiquity. Of the walls, temples, quays,
and aqueducts of old Massilia there remains not one
stone upon another. Antiquarian tastes are seldom pre-
valent in a commercial city. I should have said never —
but that I bethink me of Temple Bar, which hinders the
enuuciatiou of my proposition as effectually as it impedes
the traffic of Fleet-street. But, making all allowances for
Temple Bar, it neither prevents traffic nor negatives pro-
position. Your men of business have no leisure for dilet-
tanteism, and the daily study of invoices and bills of lading
is not favourable to the growth of sentiment. With such
men, where ground-rents are high, ( the mouldering lodges of
the past ' stand but a poor chance. Only those who have
little concern with the present have much love for the
past. This is a passion fostered by seclusion and study,
sometimes morbid and restless, evaporating in mere senti-
ment, but of inestimable service, when it finds its develop-
ment in action, in preserving, arranging, illustrating its
treasures and storing up materials for the historians,
artists, and philosophers who are yet unborn. By the

6 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

nature of the case the antiquarian spirit in auy nation
must be of somewhat late growth, yet its prevalence is no
indication of national decline. On the contrary, it is
strongest among nations which have not yet passed their
meridian, and in an exceptional class whose combativeness
is stimulated by the different spirit which prevails around
them. It is strongest in Northern, and weakest in
Southern Europe. It was strong in Alexandria and Per-
gamos in the best days of the Macedonian kings ; it was
obviously feeble in Athens and Corinth in the days of
Pausanias. It was strong in Italy under Claudius ; it
was almost extinct, with all other lights of the old world,
in Honorius* time. Never was antiquarianism so rife as
it is this day in France and England. Indeed, in the
former country it is so rampant, that it overleaps itself
and falls on the other ; not content with conserving, it
actually commits restorations.

I make no doubt that there is a nourishing society of
antiquaries at Marseilles, which might have done good
service if it had been somewhat more antique itself and
come into existence while there were still some antiquities
to preserve or restore. Now they are busy worshipping
their patron Epimetheus ; in rustic English, ' shutting the
stable-door on the stolen horse.' To this hypothetical
society I should attribute the design of a fountain erected
during this present century, and thus inscribed, 'Les
descendans des Phoceens a Homere/ One only trace of
the ancient Phoceans is believed to survive in the name
of a street, Rue de la Cannebiere, which is supposed to
be derived from kdnnabis, the Greek word for c hemp/
' tow/ The derivation is probably correct, but the in-

OUTWARD BOUND. 7

ference more than doubtful. Kdnnabi still survives in
modern Greek, and it is more probable that the name of
the street is a relic of Levantine commerce in the middle
ages than of the Phocean settlement two thousand four
hundred years ago.

Marseilles, like London, has enjoyed a continuous and,
of late, increasing prosperity. Placed as it is on a mag-
nificent harbour, near the embouchure of a great river
flowing from and through a region of abundant and varied
fertility, its prosperity depends on permanent not transi-
tory causes, natural not accidental. The name, which is
not of Greek origin, implies that the Phoceans found a
city ready to their hands, and under the same name it
has continued to flourish, of whatever race its masters
might be.

The destiny of Naples has been somewhat similar. It
has retained the name given it by its Greek founders;
like Marseilles, it has been exempted from the general
ruin of Greek towns ; and, like Marseilles, retains no
trace of its old masters.

I embarked at Marseilles on the evening of Thursday,
March 20th, and landed at Naples early on the morning
of the following Sunday. The incidents of such a voyage
are neither novel nor attractive ; instead, therefore, of
describing what has been repeated usque ad nauseam, I
will ask the reader who is kind enough to accompany me
on my journey, to reflect how this Mediterranean was in
former days ' a Greek lake,' in a far stricter sense than it
ever was, or ever will be, ' a French lake ;' the fleet of the
Messageries Imperiales to the contrary notwithstanding.

So early as six centuries before Christ, on all the

8 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

islands, and on the greater portion of the mainland, there
was scarcely a commodious harbour, scarcely a coign of
vantage, where the adventurous Greeks had not established
a town or a factory. So strong was the principle of vita-
lity in the old stock, that wherever an offshoot or bud was
washed ashore, it took root and grew into a vigorous tree.
A ship-load of emigrants speedily developed into an in-
dependent self-supporting community, holding their own
against all comers. The like has never been seen in the
world's history, for the Italian maritime republics of the
middle ages offer rather an illustration than a parallel. In
the sixth century b.c a thousand Amalfis fringed the shores
of the Mediterranean. It was not till the vitality of
Hellas began to decay that a tendency towards agglome-
ration manifested itself. The Athenian confederacy and
the Spartan were the prelude to Macedonian and Roman
conquest, and to the utter corruption of national life
which subsisted during the long agonies of the Byzantine
monarchy. The power of that empire was a vis inertia ;
its unity — the unity of cohesion, not of organized vitality.
After five days spent at Naples and in its neighbourhood,
we embarked on the afternoon of March 28th for Malta.
Coming on deck early next morning, I saw behind us
Stromboli smoking like a factory-chimney, and before us
the Straits of Messina smooth under a drizzling rain. In
all ages and in all countries the prosaic spirit of the
general public insists upon solidifying into fact the fictions
of the poet, and so these straits, being the narrowest west-
ward with which the first Greek sailors were acquainted,
were fixed upon as the site of the Homeric Scylla and
Charybdis. To transform the monsters into a rock and

OUTWARD BOUND. W

a whirlpool respectively is an easy process. Rocks there
are iu plenty, a choix, but to find the whirlpool is not so
easy. For want of a better, a sort of eddy or backwater,
close to Messina, is pointed out to the curious stranger as
Charybdis, miles away from any possible Scylla.' The
most foolish of pilots would not give Scylla so wide a berth
as to run the risk of falling into the other alternative.

The truth is that the scene of this, as of other fictions,
is to the poet's mind in some far-off unknown ocean, a
mere brain-born fantasy, without the smallest nucleus of
fact or the least soupeon of allegory.

The marvellous beauty of Messina demands an acknow-
ledgment by way of passing toll from every stranger. A
long line of stately buildings fronts the quay, the hills
behind are crowned each with a convent or a fortress,
while streets and gardens in picturesque medley fill all the
hollows and climb all the steeps. Perhaps no city has
suffered more from earthquakes, pestilence, and cannon-
balls ; but its position as the key of Sicily, or rather the
link of the two Sicilies, prevents its sharing the ruin of
Syracuse and Agrigentum. A torrent divides the city
into two unequal parts, and the detritus brought down by
it forms, with some addition from art, the sickle-shaped
mole which constitutes and protects the harbour. It was
not, however, from this mole that the Greek name Zancle
was derived, but from the shape of the harbour itself,
quite different in old times. In the sixteenth century an
earthquake filled up a great part of it.

Notwithstanding the ravages of nature and man, the
city still contains some specimens of antiquity, medieval,
not classical — the cathedral, for instance, in the apses

10 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

of -which are some large mosaics of the thirteenth century
done by Greek artists, of the Madonna, St. John the
Theologian, and others. It would be curious to compare
the style of these works with the mosaics in the Neapolitan
Museum brought from Pompeii, executed twelve hundred
years before, and inscribed with the name of Dioscorides
of Samos. One seems to feel that the imperfections of
the older work were owing to the unskilfulness of the
artist, those of the later work to the decline of art.

After eight hours' stay, we left Messina. A furious
wind and sea drove most of the passengers below. I re-
mained on deck, and was more than rewarded for my long
endurance by a lifting of the clouds, which revealed Etna
with all her snows, lighted up by the westering sun.

Next morning, Sunday, March 30th, we landed at
Malta, and in the evening sailed in a new screw-steamer,
the Danube, for Syra. Hough weather which rendered the
deck untenable, a thumpiug screw which made sleep im-
possible, a pitching vessel, and indifferent food, made our
three days' voyage seem like an age.

On Tuesday we caught sight of Cephalonia far to the
north, and later Cape St. Gallo, with the snowy Taygetus
beyond it. On Wednesday afternoon we sailed under the
red cliffs of Melos, and at ten at night anchored off Syra.
The Etesian wind blowing steadily from the north-east
deterred our captain from entering the harbour ; so we lay
all the next day under the lee of a barren island capped
with a newly-built lighthouse, full in sight of the town.
By this delay we missed the Austrian boat which leaves
every Thursday for the Piraeus, and were compelled to
wait at Syra till Sunday, much commiserated by a fellow-

OUTWARD BOUND. 11

passenger, who assured us that Syra was ' a place to cut
one's throat in.'

However, to a landsman long in pitching steamer pent,
all terra firma is welcome as a home — omne solum patria.
The little Hotel d'Angleterre furnished decent lodging
and abundant food, and the new people and strange modes
of life afforded us ample amusement.

Two simultaneous festivals were going on — the accession
of King Otho and the Annunciation. Greeks, wearing the
so-called national, really Albanian costume, white kilts of
ample fold and embroidered jackets, swung about the
quays and filled the cafes — Greeks from the islands still
wearing the livery of servitude, baggy trousers tight at
the ankles, and coats of the same colour ; grave Turks, and
fussy Europeans of all nations. To find people actually
reckoning by drachmas, to read the signs over the shops,
to see those venerable characters and that ancient language
applied to the meanest and most trivial uses of every-day
life — all this produces in the mind of a new-comer a sen-
sation of unreality, as if the whole thing were an elaborate
joke. Strange contrasts, too, meet the eye and ear in
this little Babel. For instance, entering one day a Pan-
topoleion, or general store, where all things are sold from
waterproof capes to pickled walnuts, we found Epami-
nondas the owner in altercation with a ship's captain
from Hull ; if that may be called an altercation where the
Yorkshireman poured forth a torrent of provincial and
emphatic Saxon, and the Greek only shrugged his
shoulders. The cafes are numerous, as in most Greek
towns, and all well-frequented. There is no attempt at
decoration, nor any provision in the way of sofas or chairs

12 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

for the external comfort of the guests, only bare walls and
•wooden benches; on the other hand, there is a goodly
array of liqueur-bottles, a long row of narghiles, called in
the new lingua franca of the Levant, per onomatopoean,
hobble-bobble, and a constant supply of good coffee. The
refection is extraordinarily cheap. Here is a bill incurred
(and paid) by a party at the Elysia (to. 'HXvo-m), spelt as
the waiter would have spelt it. I give it, without ex-
planation, as a specimen of the pbonetic orthography
common in the modern Greek, and at the same time a
lesson in Greek currency :

2 Kd(p<f)( 20 Xt^ro.

1 poaoj\io IO

2 7ravv% 60

1 X o73j3 £ A-/3o73/3 £ A ... to

The total amount being one hundred leptas, or one drachma,
equal to %\d. sterling.

There are few more striking sights than the town, or
rather towns, as viewed from the sea. The old town,
Syra proper, occupies the upper half of a steep conical
hill ; the new town, Hermopolis — not inaptly named as the
seat of trade — spreads itself along the shore. The houses
and churches in both are dazzlingly white. The soil, wher-
ever it appears, as well as the higher hills behind, is of a
reddish brown, scarcely relieved here and there by patches
of garden and cornfields — poor starvelings dying of thirst.

The position of the old town — so difficult of access,
and so inconvenient for purposes of commerce — was no
doubt selected as affording security from the depredations
of pirates at a time when the declining powers of Venice

OUTWARD BOUND. 13

and Genoa became unable to protect the seaboard.
Thucydides, in the preface to his history (b. i. c. 7), tells
us that, while the more ancient towns were built up above,
away from the sea, for protection against the rovers who
infested the coasts, the more modern towns, which had
grown up in times of comparative safety, were placed
down below close to the shore — a position more commo-
dious for purposes of trade. His words receive an excel-
lent commentary at Syra. Now that the fleets of the
great Powers have again done the work of the Cretan
king, the new town lines the shore. It is to France,
Austria, and England that the Greeks owe the security
of their commerce. Without the oppressive interference
of these barbarians, piracy would be as rife as ever in the
Levant. The intricate navigation, the changing winds,
the countless coves and harbours of the Archipelago, offer
to piracy such facilities and temptations and such impu-
nity as no other part of the world can afford. The feeble
and corrupt governments of Greece and Turkey would be
quite unable to cope with the evil. To these islanders
legitimate trade is as distasteful as any corvee to the serf;
and piracy the favourite profession, followed without
shame whenever it can be followed without fear. In
their eyes it is an honourable calling ; which, to say truth, it
scarcely becomes the children of Norsemen and buccaneers,
and the first cousins of filibusters to disparage.

Man in his natural state is not only a political or
social animal, but also a beast of prey, and looks upon
those with whom he has neither acknowledged kinship
nor habitual intercourse as chronic foes and fair game.
Till quite recently a Greek islander would no more shrink

14 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

from committing an act of piracy, than an English or
Scottish Borderer, in the fifteenth century, would have
hesitated to join in a foray ; a Devonshire seaman, in the
sixteenth, to ship himself in an armed vessel bound for
the Spanish Main ; or a Highlander, in the seventeenth,
to lift a few head of cattle from the pastures of his Sasse-
nach neighbours. Privateering, also, sanctioned down to
the present century by the foremost nations of earth, is
only piracy with a licence, which affects the legality, but
cannot touch the morality of the practice. In those
early days, as Thucydides says (b. i. c. 5), the profes-
sion of pirate had as yet no disgrace attached to it, but
rather brought a man credit. In proof he quotes the
practice and code of certain continental tribes in his own
day, and the question which the ancient poets constantly
represent as being everywhere alike put to newly-landed
strangers, ( Whether they are pirates V In illustration of
this passage in Thucydides, two from the Odyssey are
usually brought forward (b. iii. 73, and b. ix. 254), where
the same words are used by Nestor to Telemachus, and
by the Cyclops to Ulysses : ' Strangers, who are ye ?
whence sail ye the watery ways ? Come ye on business, or
rove ye at haphazard like pirates o'er the sea, who wander
with their lives in their hands, doing mischief to foreign
men V Col. Mure 1 goes so far as to say that Thucydides
quotes this passage. He certainly does not quote it ; and it
may, I think, be doubted whether he had not rather in his
mind some other parts of epic poems now lost, where the
question was put more directly. Observe that Homer does

1 Hi story of Greek Literature, vol. ii. p. 52.

OUTWARD BOUND. 15

not represent the strangers as being asked ' "Whether they
are pirates V but ( Whether they are like pirates V that is,
in having no single object in view, and being bound to no
particular place. Col. Mure observes : ' Amid the general
blindness of commentators to the facetious element of the
poem, this inquiry has usually and very uncritically been
assumed to be made in sober earnest/

We must hesitate to receive this interpretation, when
we remember that Thucydides was one of these ' blind
and uncritical ' commentators. It is, I think, clear from
the words of the historian that the question was one of
the commonplaces to which all epic poets claimed a right
as to their stock-in-trade, and of which no one could claim
the invention. The joke, if joke it were, must have been
worn very thread-bare by repetition, as it was the question
put ' everywhere by all alike/ I cannot but hold that
the received sense is the real one, and that the question
is put f in sober earnest/ In its simplest form, ' Are you
pirates or honest men V it was probably current in the
ante-Homeric epic, when the deeds of pirates furnished a
theme for popular admiration and for poets' praise, like
the deeds of Robin Hood and Adam Bell during the ana-
logous period of moral and literary culture in England.
"We may infer, from the softening of the question by the
author of the Odyssey, and from the expression of blame
which he attaches to the pirate's life, not, assuredly, in
joke, that in his days the innocence of the old time was
giving place to a more elaborate system of morality, and
the good old rule, the simple plan, was no longer thought
compatible with dignity and honour. At all events I
think that the question is serious, and that Thucydides

16 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

was perfectly justified in drawing from it the historical
inference he does. His sagacity, moreover, is vindicated
by the experience of other peoples and later times.

In the meanwhile, thanks to this abnormal state of
security, the town of Hermopolis is growing to be one of
the most important places of the Levant. It has already
distanced the Piraeus, and is beyond comparison the most
important seaport of the Greek kingdom. In the year
1855 no less than fifty-six vessels were built in its docks.

Its customs produce from 25,000/. to 28,000/. per
month. I very much doubt, by the way, whether the
shilling I paid to the custom-house officer on landing, in
consideration of his waiving the right of search, ever
found its way into the coffers of King Otho. This rapid
growth is due entirely to the convenience of its position
as a rendezvous for vessels from the west bound for
Smyrna, Constantinople, or Salonica ; a second Malta, as
it were, for, like Malta, it offers no intrinsic sources of
wealth. The value of the whole annual produce of the
island is estimated by the English consul there at from
io,coo/. to 12,000/., while the revenue derived from the
customs exceeds, as I have said, 300,000/.

The soil is thin and stony even in the clefts and
hollows, while the ridges of the hills are bare rock, coarse
red marble, or hard slate. The wells are few and scanty.
Plain there is none. It is impossible that the island ever
could have merited the praise of Homer. He endows it
with f goodly herds and flocks, abundant vines, and plen-
teous wheat,' but in this, as in so many cases, the traveller
will be grievously disappointed if he seeks to justify the
epithets of the epic poet by some distinctive peculiarity.

OUTWARD BOUND. 17

These complimentary phrases are the ordinary courtesies
of the waudering minstrel, who finds a welcome wherever
he goes, and repays pudding with praise. If this be in-
deed 'the isle which is called Syne/ of which Homer
speaks, the real prose commentary on the line would be
that there the bard had found, or hoped to find, no lack
of beef, mutton, white bread, and wine.

But I incline to think that the Homeric name ' Syne/
belongs not to any spot in the known globe, but to a little
cloud-island which floated once on a time across the poet's
mental vision, and was forthwith photographed and framed
in verse for the perpetual delight of all who read, and the
endless perplexity of all who comment. The swineherd,
leader of men, is entertaining the fluent stranger, and
f capping ' him with one of his best stories, told in the
first person as the more graphic mode. 1 Syne is described
as an island ' above Ortygia, where are the tropics of the
sun. There hunger is never known, there men are
plagued by no disease, but in the fulness of years Apollo
and his sister come and slay them with painless shafts.'
The identity of Syrie and Syra rests upon the mention
of Ortygia, which is assumed to be another name for
Delos. This assumption has no authority in the Homeric
poems to rest on, nor do I find any of earlier date quoted
than Servius and Strabo. Ortygia occurs twice in the
Odyssey, with no reference to Delos, and once in an inter-
polated line in the ' Hymn to Apollo ' it is spoken of as
different from Delos/ but apparently in its neighbourhood.

1 Od. xv. 402, 599.
The second passage, here referred to, of the Odyssey, is in hook
c

18 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

The identification of the mysterious and fictitious Ortygia
with the real Delos is a later invention, for the purpose of
reconciling two discrepant narratives, and giving to vague
mythologies a local habitation. The words which follow,

v. line 123. There Ortygia is spoken of as the island where the
rosy-fingered Dawn dwelt with her paramour Orion, when he was
slain by the offended Artemis. Compare this with the other passage,
which places it ' where are the tropics of the sun,' and we see at once
that the Homeric Ortygia is quite removed from the known earth
and the regions of reality. I think that it is not difficult to explain
how the confusion arose. In 734 B.C. Archias, a Corinthian (to use
the words of Mr. Grote, vol. iii. p. 487), 'in the violent prosecution
of unbridled lust had caused, though unintentionally, the death of a
free youth named Aktseon.' Being in consequence compelled to leave
the country, he led a body of emigrants to Sicily. The name of the
murdered youth and the occasion of his death would, as I conceive,
suggest the propriety of placing the new colony under the especial
protection of Artemis, and of giving to the little island where they
built their city the name of Ortygia, already famous in the mytho-
logical stories of that goddess. Hence Pindar, in the commencement
of the first Xemean Ode, addresses this, the real Ortygia, as ' Sister of
Delos.' Doubtless the mythologers of Syracuse, with that unscrupu-
lousness which characterizes all mythologers, appropriated to their
sanctuary many features of the legends which had their local home in
Delos, and the Delians made reprisals by asserting that their island
was the original Ortygia. The Dorian pride of race on the one side,
and the Ionian on the other, were interested in maintaining either
theory, and the piety of the Hellenes in general contented itself with
accepting both, without trying to unravel the confusion.

It is foreign to the present question to investigate the origin of the
legend which connected Arethusa with Alpheus. If I might venture
upon a guess by the way, I would suggest that the fountain had in
early times a double name, Arethusa and Alphussa (AXcfyovaaa ; com-
pare AeXc^oCcro-a, or Tikcjiovaa-a, the famous Boeotian spring), the one
name a dialectic variety of the other ; and that the story was invented
to show how it came about that the two streams were blended in one.
To quote the well-known lines of Shelley, where, like all great poets,

OUTWARD BOUND. 19

' where are the tropics of the sun/ seem to me to state
expressly that Syrie and Ortygia lie in a region beyond
the regions familiar to the Greeks ; and the rest of the
description proves that, like the land of the Phseacians, it
belongs to the kingdom of Cocaigne. That easy process
of rationalism which consists in ignoring the supernatural
part of a story and accepting whatever is not in itself
impossible as a statement of fact, has long been exploded
in historical criticism. Surely the process is equally absurd
in matters of geography. We ought not to quote this
passage to prove that Syrie had two capital cities, and was
more fertile in old times, unless we are also prepared to
admit that it was on the tropics, and that its inhabitants
were exempt from the ordinary ills of human life.

One day we climbed by a stony path the hill which
rises behind the town. This specular mount occupies
almost the centre of that imaginary circle, or geographical
ring-fence, from which the Cyclades derive their name,
and is, perhaps, the point from which the best view of
the group can be obtained. To the right lies Delos,
scarcely distinguishable from the larger island of Rhensea ;
both being equally bare and desolate, and separated by a
channel so narrow, that Polycrates tied them together

he is indifferent to geographical precision if it interferes with his
metre or his rhyme : —

• And now from4heir fountains
In Enna's mountains,

Down one vale where the morning hasks,
Like friends once parted,
Grown single-hearted,

They ply their watery tasks.'
c 2

20 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

with a chain, 1 and Nicias connected them by a bridge' 2
built in a single night, as an agreeable surprise to Apollo.
We were deterred from visiting this famous island by the
consul, who threatened us with a steady gale and a fort-
night's detention. Over Delos rises the barren ridge of
Myconos ; turning to the north-east we see Tenos, the
best-watered and most fertile of the islands, Naxos perhaps
excepted. On its steep slopes we can count many villages,
white houses among green vineyards and cornfields, with
jagged peaks of red granite rising behind. Further away to
the north is Andros, a huge mass of bold rock, and further
still in the dim distance the lofty mountains of Eubcea.
Between Eubcea and Andros is the d'Oro Strait, through
which, as through a funnel, the Etesian winds blow at
times with terrific fury. It bears an evil repute among
sailors, and has been fatal to the Oilean Ajax and many a
better man. Almost at our feet to the north-west lies
the ' narrow ' rock of Gyaros, the Norfolk Island of the
Romans, utterly barren, without a level or pleasant spot
of ground, scarcely six miles in circumference, and as
uninviting a residence as could well be to a man fond
of ease, or change, or pleasure. Its familiarity to the
Roman ear, doubtless, induced Virgil to mention it as one
of the anchors of Delos, otherwise Syra or Tenos would
have had a better claim. 3 It is plain, I think, that Virgil

1 Thuc. iii. 104. 2 Plutarch. Nicias, c. 3.

3 JEneid. iii. 74 —

Quam pius Arcitenens oras et litora circum
Errantem Mycono e celsa Gyaroque revinxit.

Some MSS. and Edd. invert ' Mycono' and Gyaro ;' but this scarcely
helps the sense, for the one island has no more claim to the adjective

OUTWARD BOUND. 21

had never visited these parts when he wrote the JEneid.
Myconos cannot be called lofty except, perhaps, in compa-
rison with Delos itself. But, indeed, in no part of vEneas's
voyage before he reaches Italy can I trace any sign of the
poet's personal acquaintance with the scenery. Westward
we have Ceos and Cythnos ; to the south-west, Seriphos,
famous in old times for its proverbial insignificance; 1
southward, Siphuos, Paros and, lastly, the picturesque
and noble outline of Naxos.

The contemplation of this panorama produces a strange

' lofty' than the other. Statius, too, following Virgil, as in duty-
hound, mentions the anchors of Delos in the same order —

. ipsa tua Mycono Gyaroque revelli,
Dele, times. (Thebais, iii. 438.)

Ovid, as if to correct what had been noted as an error in Yirgil by the
critics of the time, calls Myconos ' lowly,' which is an error on the
other side. — JTetam. vii. 463.

Hinc humilem Myconon cretosaque rura Cimoli,
Florentenique Cythnon, Sc} r ron, planamque Seriphon.

Neither is ' plana' appropriate to Seriphos. I am persuaded, more-
over, that he here confounds Syros with Scyros, an island far away
to the northward. K the Metamorphoses had been written after his
banishment — which we know from Tristia (ii. 555) was not the case
— he would have described more accurately these islands, through
which he sailed on his way to Tomi (Tristia, i. II, 7), though it is
true that he was too much occupied with his elegiacs to observe
them, but supposes, on the other hand, that they were lost in admira-
tion of him —

Quod facerem versus inter fera murmura ponti
Cycladas ^Egseas obstupuisse puto.

A most characteristic passage this. Mr. Euskin can scarcely find a
better example of ' the pathetic fallacy.'

1 Arist. Ach. 542 ; Plat, Sep. b. i.

22 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

mixture of delight and disappointment. These masses of
limestone and granite, infinitely varied and always beau-
tiful in form, lit up with splendid sunshine, set in a vast
circle of cobalt blue, form a spectacle as rare as charming
to the children of the misty north; but the sense of aban-
donment and desolation gives one pain. Our own poets
are accustomed to invest these islands of the iEgean with
attributes borrowed from the islands of the Pacific. As
Keats says : —

Chief isle of the embowered Cyclades,

Rejoice, Delos, with thine olives green,

And laurels and lawn-shading palm and beech,

In which the zephyr sings the loudest song,

And hazel thick, dark-stemnied, beneath the shade, &c.

The ' embowered Cyclades V Homer himself could
not have found an epithet less merited. Nor, when Ovid
called Melite (Malta, to wit) ' fertile/ was the compliment
more misapplied. 1

Even we, the public, who are not poets by profession,
except in so far as we may have wooed the unwilling
Minerva in Latin verse, at times think poetry, as M.
Jourdain talked prose, without knowing it, and investing
our dreamlands with all that is most striking to the fancy
in popular voyagers' books, the tropical luxuriance of
Tahiti or South America, or with all that charms us most
in our own scenery, thick woods and sloping lawns and
deep meadows, call the paradise of our creation by the
sweet-sounding Greek names familiar to us from child-
hood. We have a vision of our own, and we undo it by
a visit. Is it, then, better to stay at home ? Certainly

1 Fasti, 'iii. 567.

OUTWARD BOUND. 23

not, unless for one who prefers dreaming to waking.
The only interesting geography is geography of three
dimensions ; and a knowledge of any country derived from
actual inspection, gives an unsuspected significance and a
new interest to the study of its history and its literature,
and even furnishes, to one who has the divine gift, more
solid materials for poetry. Shelley's Italian pictures are
a thousand times more vivid than the vague generalities
of his Hellas, and Keats would have found something
better to say of the Cyclades as they are. If any one
says that Wordsworth's palinode, * Yarrow visited/ is not
equal to the ' Yarrow unvisited/ I can only reply, as
people always reply to awkward facts, that it is neither
here nor there. My proposition is true in the main.

\Ve sailed from Syra in a French steamer on Sunday,
April 6th, at sunset. There was a great crowd of Greeks,
who spread their beds and blankets on deck ; pilgrims who
had been paying their devotions to Our Lady of Tenos.
When I came up, soon after sunrise next morning, we were
coasting along a broad bay fringed with sand. Behind it,
and between the grey stony hills which came down on
either side to the sea, lay a plain, sterile and colourless,
except on the left a belt of pale blue olive-groves. Then
Ave became aware of a tall, square tower and a range of
yellow broken wall on a rocky eminence a few miles in-
land, and then it flashed upon us that the bay was the bay
of Phalerum and the stony hills, Parnes and Hymettus.

Half an hour later we rounded the headland, on the
extreme point of which an English sentinel was standing,
and entered the harbour of the *Piraeus. A little swarm
of boats put off from the shore as soon as we appeared,

2 1 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

and when we came to anchor, and were waiting for pratica,
hung round the vessel ' like flies round the milk-pail in
summer time/ as Homer says. "Whenever an Englishman
appeared on deck, he was at once detected, and a score of
voices assailed him with ' I say, Johnnie, vare good boat.'
Such were the first words which welcomed us to the
Attic shores. The magnificent harbour contained but few
merchant-ships, and would have seemed almost empty but
for the towering masses of English and French war-steamers,
of which some half-dozen were riding at anchor. A row
of mean buildings lines the quayside. The most imposing
was the custom-house, which a few months afterwards was
burnt to the ground. The Greek newspapers directly
charged the principal official with consuming the accounts
which he could not balance. That functionary, if he has
read Aristophanes, 1 may console himself with the reflec-
tion that a similar charge was brought against a greater
man, even Pericles. The conflagration, too, was, in that
case, proportionally greater, for it embraced the empire of
Athens.

The mysterious pratica being at length obtained, the
vessel was boarded by a rabble of boatmen, to escape
from whose importunity we surrendered ourselves and our
luggage to a commissionaire despatched for the purpose
from the hotel in the ' asty ' where we proposed to lodge.
He had us rowed ashore for two drachmas, bribed the
officer on duty at the custom-house for another, and hired
for four drachmas more, a droschky, which in three
quarters of an hour conveyed us to Athens.

1 Pax. 606.

OUTWARD BOUND. 25

The reader who has trusted himself to my guidance

thus far, will be inclined to ask with Sebastian in Twelfth

Night

Shall we go see the reliques of this town ?
I pray you let us satisfy our eyes
With the memorials and the things of fame
That do renown this city.

I am bound to explain why I depart from what seems,
at first sight, the natural course, and for the present pass
over Athens in silence. The subject has, indeed, been
treated of so often and so well, that I dare not challenge
a comparison. On this ground alone I would answer
Sebastian's proposal as Antonio does : —

Would you'd pardon me ;
I do not without danger walk these streets.

I cannot hope to add anything to the exhaustive inves-
tigations of Leake and Penrose, or to surpass the vivid
sketches of Wordsworth and Stanley. I therefore deter-
mined not to attempt anything like a detailed account of
Athens and its antiquities, but to confine myself to some
remarks in the shape of detached essays, on some points
still subject to discussion and controversy. Since Colonel
Leake's time, neither the discoverer nor the theorizer has
been idle, and what the shovel of the one has brought to
light, the pen of the other has involved in obscurity. But
for the little I have to say on the subject of Athenian
antiquities, this is not the place. Our first visit was limited
to a week, for the most favourable season for travelling was
already come, and we were advised to lose no time in
setting out. It was not till the ensuing summer that I
found leisure to make a serious and lengthened study of

26 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

the matchless relics still extant in the capital. To me,
therefore, the natural plan seems to be to speak first of
the Morea. In this way, too, I shall best consult for the
orderly arrangement of my ■work, by keeping its narrative
portions together. The Morea, unlike Attica, offers no
single spot of such absorbing interest as to induce the
traveller to linger there and leave minor objects unseen ;
on the contrary, when he returns, after a month of con-
stant movement, he would be puzzled to say Avhich of many
cities, which of many scenes, has most delighted him. So
that the subject lends itself more easily to continuous
narrative than to separate essays.

For these reasons, the ' Notes of Study and Travel'
submitted to the public in the present volume relate only
to Peloponnesus.

CHAPTER II.

FKOM ATHENS TO MEGARA.

rPOURISTS in "Western Europe perform their task in two
-*- ways, in a carriage or on foot. As Greece, after thirty
years of constitutional government and renewed connection
with ' wheel- going Europe/ has not yet any carriage-roads
to speak of, 1 the first course is impracticable. And as the
traveller in Greece has to provide himself with food,
cooking-utensils, and bed, the second course is scarcely
feasible either. The only available plan is to go on horse-
back. You may either hire horses for yourself, in which case
the owner or his underling accompanies you as agoyat, or
groom, to look after the beasts, leaving you to provide for
and look after yourself; or you may contract with a drago-
man for the supply of everything, lodging and bed, food
and cookery. The latter plan is in every respect the best.
You are freed from all anxiety as to where you shall
sleep and how dine, and from the greater anxiety as to

1 The first achievement of liberated Greece, in this respect, was, of
course, the road from the Piraeus to the city, five miles and a fraction
in length, for part of which the remains of the northern ' long wall '
furnished a solid foundation ; the second, that to Phalerum, some-
thing more than three miles, over which the queen drives to her
bath every morning in summer ; and, finally, by slow degrees, a
road practicable for carriages has been completed through Eleusis and
Megara to Thebes.

28 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

•whether you shall sleep or dine at all ; and thus you are
able to devote your attention exclusively to external
objects. It is, of course, more costly. The dragoman
will ask thirty francs a day per head, and will not take
less than five-and-twenty, whereas with an agoyat only all
expenses will be covered by twelve or fourteen francs a
day. There is, indeed, a third method, which is the most
economical, and in some respects the best of all, and that
is to go a-foot and lead or drive a horse laden with the
baggage of the party. Unfortunately the plan will only
suit those who are young, strong, and already familiar
with the people and the language. The students of the
French Academy adopt it, and are consequently looked
upon by the professional dragoman as low, ungentlemanly
fellows. M. About, indeed, tells us that, when a student
himself, he ventured on an equestrian tour, but the result
was infinitely disastrous, and prudence as well as economy
may prescribe to his successors the humbler and safer
mode. I am not, however, sure whether this mishap,
like other parts of his most entertaining volume, be not a
figment of his brain. Certainly in all our cavalcade there
was not one horse which ever displayed the slightest ten-
dency to run away — quite the reverse.

There are about half-a-dozen men at Athens who follow
the profession of dragoman, and who, when not on duty
in that capacity, serve as laquais de place, and expound
to the curious stranger the antiquities of the city. TA'e
selected one Alexander, a Corfiote, on the recommendation
of the Handbook, and drove an easy bargain by giving
him what he asked. In two days he had made his pre-
parations, and at half-past eight on Tuesday, the 15th of

FROM ATHENS TO MEGABA. 29

April, our cavalcade started from the hotel. The travellers
were three in number, two English, one American, each
mounted upon a somewhat sorry steed, which was destined
to become much sorrier before the month was past.
Immediately before us rode Alexander, in white kilt and
crimson jacket, cracking his whip and shouting at intervals
to let off some of his superabundant vainglory. Before
him was a horse laden with certain provisions and a kitchen
battery, and above all was perched the presiding genius,
whose duty it was to put this and that together for our
daily refection — the cook, in fact. His name was Con-
stantine, born at Scio, and providentially saved from the
massacre of that ilk when a mere child. He w r as dressed
in sad-coloured Turkish costume, and, whether from the
impression of early misfortunes or from a sense of official
responsibilities, always preserved a solemn gravity of
countenance and deportment. He proved himself a jewel
of a cook. We drank his health almost daily. Foremost
of all were three horses carrying beds, campstools, table,
canteen, and our personal luggage, accompanied by three
agoyats on foot, Eleutherius, Pericles, and Alcibiades, all
in white kilts, coarse woollen jackets, and greaves or
gaiters of the same. Eleutherius, alias Lefteri, was a man
of middle age and substance, being owner of the horses ;
Pericles, a stolid crass young man, native of Thebes ; and
Alcibiades, a born Athenian, a merry dog and sad pickle,
not unworthy of his name. In this order our procession
crossed the Cephissus, and marched along the road which
in old times was the sacred way leading from Athens to
Eleusis. There are no traces of the ancient road ; indeed,
as the ground which it crosses hereabouts is always dry

30 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

and hard, there never was any need for either substruction
or pavement. Not till we come to the low wet ground
near Eleusis do we discover any remnants. Notwith-
standing the ravages of the last Philip and of him who,
happily for mankind, was the first and last Sulla, it was
still in the time of Pausanias bordered with many altars
and tombs, temples and statues, of which no vestige now
remains. The road makes straight as an arrow for a
depression in the mountain-range — a col it would be called
in Switzerland — through which winds the pass of Daphne.
Before entering the pass we turned to say good-bye to
Athens. There are still traces of ancient fortifications
near the road at this point, marking probably the site of
one of the fortresses where the young peripoloi did garrison
duty. Although so marked a feature in the physical
geography of Attica, it does not appear that this point
was of any importance as a military post, and consequently
makes no figure in history. The ridge is indeed prac-
ticable anywhere for light-armed troops, and might, I have
no doubt, be crossed in many places by hoplites and even
cavalry — Greek cavalry, that is, not dragoons or hussars.
The rampart which Colonel Leake traced along the crest
of the hill and in the pass near Liosta, is not mentioned
in any history that I know of. Certainly it either did not
exist, or was already abandoned to ruin in the time of the
Peloponnesian war. Otherwise the Athenians would have
made some stand there, or at all events Thucydides would
have told us why they did not.

It probably was thrown up when Greece was kept in
fear of the Gauls, and as it proved to be unnecessary,
escaped the notice of historians. Any inference drawn

FROM ATHENS TO MEGARA. 31

from its structure would be doubtful, as works of necessity-
built in haste resemble each other everywhere and at all
times. The characteristics of an age are exhibited only
in works of skill and leisure.

There is, moreover, another pass leading from the plain
of Eleusis to that of Athens, opening on the latter near
the modern village of Liosta, between the lower ridge of
which we are now speaking and the main range of Parnes,
of which it is a spur or offshoot. To this lower ridge,
between Mount Parnes and the Straits of Salamis, two
names are commonly assigned, iEgaleos and Corydallus.
Looking at it from Athens, the first hypothesis that occurs
is that one portion of the hill thus intersected by the
goi'ge of Daphne bore one name, the other portion the
other name. But Thucydides (b. ii. c. 19), speaking of the
first invasion of Attica by the Peloponnesian allies, tells us
that, after advancing as far as the so-called Rheitoi (which
we know to be on the Eleusinian side of the hill, near the
foot of the pass of Daphne), they went on, keeping Mount
^Egaleos on the right, through Kropeia to Acharnie; that
is to say, instead of crossing by the pass of Daphne, they
crossed by that of Liosta. This shows clearly that the
name iEgaleos was applied to that part of the range which
lies between Daphne and Parnes.

A well-known passage in Herodotus (b. viii. c. 90),
stating that the chair of Xerxes was set on the slope of
Mount iEgaleos that he might see the battle of Salamis,
shows no less clearly that this name was also given to the
seaward portion of the mountain. The ancient iEgaleos
then stretched from Parnes to the sea. What, then,
becomes of Corvdallus ? Strabo mentions an Attic village

32 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

or demus of that name near the Straits of Salamis, at
the foot of a mountain of the same name. This
mountain (which scarcely deserves so imposing a name)
may be identified with a lower range running parallel
to iEgaleos along its seaward part between it and Athens.
Other authorities have placed Corydallus between Attica
and Bceotia, and the Dictionary of Geography refers to
Athenseus (b. ix. p. 390) as one of them. In reality
the inference to be drawn from his testimony makes in
favour of the statement of Strabo. He quotes Theo-
phrastus's words : l The partridges at Athens on this side
of Corydallus towards the city call (icaKKa/3/^oua-tv), and
those on the further side twitter (TirrvfiiZovaiv).' Thus
the partridges on the further side of Corydallus are still
called f the partridges at Athens/ which could only be
said of a hill situated entirely within the Athenian plain.

But such questions must, after all, be answered doubt-
fully; and we need not be surprised to find that, in the
lapse of five or six hundred years, after so many changes,
social and political, geographical names had changed too ;
some extended in their application, some restricted, some
disused altogether, giving place to new. Thus in Pausanias's
time the mountain which we have shown to be iEgaleos
in the fifth century b.c had assumed in whole or in part
the name of Poikilon Oros, ' the variegated ;' a title for
which it is difficult to account. Thin soil, lack of moisture,
and sparse vegetation make it as monotonous in colour as
any hill in Greece.

The name Daphne rests upon no ancient authority, and
there is not a single laurel to justify it. Perhaps it may
be a fancy-name in honour of Apollo and his temple,

FROM ATHENS TO MEGARA. 33

coined by some medieval scholar dwelling at Athens. And
there were many such — Michael Acominatos, for instance,
Archbishop of Athens, at the end of the twelfth century,
quotes Aristophanes in a memorial addressed to govern-
ment, complaining of the decay of the city. 1 Perhaps the
convent here may have been founded by monks from the
once flourishing convent of Anaphe, who gave to their new
home the name of the old, a name easily corrupted into
the more familiar word Daphne. It was a word which
commended itself to Christian as well as Pagan sympathies.

The grove of Daphne near Antioch, which from the
time of Seleucus Nicanor had been, so long as Paganism
continued to flourish, one of the most famous idol-shrines,
was subsequently the scene of a great triumph of the
Church, and of a miraculous manifestation celebrated by
the golden mouth of Chrysostom. The remains of St.
Babylas, Bishop of Antioch, which had been buried in
Apollo's precinct, were removed by order of Julian. ' During
the night/ says Gibbon (ch. xxiii.), f the temple of Daphne
was in flames ; the statue of Apollo was consumed, and
the walls of the edifice were left a naked and awful monu-
ment of ruin. The Christians of Antioch asserted with
religious confidence that the powerful intercession of St.
Babylas had pointed the lightnings of heaven against the
devoted roof.'

Of course, when Julian's tyranny was overpast, the bones
of Babylas were restored, his church rebuilt, and thus
Daphne was sanctified in the eyes of Christians as the
resting-place of a thaumaturgic saint.

1 Finlay's Med. Greece, p. 153.
D

3t NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

We rested awhile at the convent, which is clearly
built of the materials, and doubtless occupies the site,
of the temple of Apollo. Its foundation was attributed
to Cephalus; 1 probably from its situation near the
head, K^akrj, of the pass. The origin of half the
legends of Greece is to be sought in a jingle of words.
The pass from Eleusis into Boeotia was called rput;
KifyaXcu or Apuoc K£(pa\al f and this of Daphne, whose
ancient name is nowhere recorded, may have been simply
known to the Athenians as Cephale. The convent,
which was once rich and prosperous, is now ruinous,
poverty-stricken, and almost abandoned. It consists of a
courtyard surrounded by a cloister and cells, and on one
side a church on the Byzantine model, with a central cupola.
Some of the dukes of Athens, of the De la Roche family,
lie buried there — or rather lay, for one tomb at least has
been rifled. To them also is attributed a Gothic facade
which has been added to the outer wall of the church. 3

Remounting, we soon pass on the right hand a rock, on
the smoothed face of which are niches and inscriptions to
Aphrodite; no doubt the site of the temple which Pausa-
nias mentions. In his time there was ' in front of it a
wall of rough stones worth seeing' — there is a wall of
rough stones now, scarcely worth seeing. That Father of
Handbooks does not seem to have thought the view of the
plain and bay of Eleusis, which shortly opens out to
the traveller, worth seeing, for he passes it without notice.
Indeed, I do not remember, in all his book, a single phrase

1 Pausanias, i. 36. 2 Herodotus, ix. 38.

Buchon, Principaute Fran$aise en Moree, vol. iii. pi. xxxi.

FROM ATHENS TO MEGARA. 35

implying any sense of landscape beauty. The dullest of
moderns could scarcely fail to notice and admire the fair
reach of blue, land-locked sea which comes curving in
upon the level plain, green with spring, and the rocky hills
that stand around Eleusis, sheltering the sacred bay and
sacred plain from all the winds that blow ; rocky hills,
bearing so proudly their famous names Parnes, Cithseron,
Salamis. Nor is the prospect what it was. The bright
jewel to which the landscape was but the setting — the
mystic temple with its glorious gates of Pentelic marble — is
gone, and in its place a group of poverty-stricken hovels
makes an anticlimax to the beauty and bounty of nature.

Shortly after descending into the plain we come to a little
salt-water lake, from which a stream or streams are con-
stantly flowing to the sea ; doubtless the Rheitoi of Pausa-
nias. What he says is worth quoting, as it illustrates his
attainments in physical geography. ' What are called
Rheitoi have no characteristic of rivers, but the stream
for their water is sea. It is probable that they flow even
from the Euripus under ground, 1 and fall into the lower
sea.'- He goes on to say that they are sacred to Demeter
and Aphrodite, and that the right of fishing belongs
exclusively to the priests. The little lake seems not
unsuitable for a vivarium. I asked one of the men if
there were any fish there. Inferring that I should like
an affirmative answer, he promptly gave one.

Further on we pass a ruined tomb, and find many
traces of ancient and solid causeway ; among others a

1 ' Under ground.' I propose here iiro ttjs yrjs, instead of diro rijs yrjs.
2 Att. i. 38.

D 2

36 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

bridge, whose arch is half buried in the alluvial soil.
By and bye Ave cross the Cephissus, which, as Pausanias
saw it, ran with a stronger stream than its namesake in
the plain of Athens. It is not the case now. Probably
in the old time the Athenian river was bled even more
than at present for the irrigation of orchards and gardens,
and its volume, as it flowed into the Phaleric Bay, propor-
tionately smaller.

In wet Aveather, however, the Eleusinian stream, now a
mere thread, spreads out into a flood ; and under the very
eyes of the goddess — Cerere non probante — devastates the
cornfields. This antagonism, perhaps, gave rise to a
legend that Pluto descended at a spot by the river side
when he carried off her daughter ; and the story that here
Theseus killed the giant Polypemon, may refer to some
ancient works executed by Athenians for checking the
ravages of the inundations. Before reaching the village
Ave stop at a deserted chapel, which serves as a receptacle
for some recently discovered fragments, all in a very bat-
tered state. There is a head of Jupiter, and the lower
part of a draped female figure. The fame of this last
discovery had reached Athens ; and, from the reported
dimensions, the British minister there supposed it might be
the supplemental part of the colossal head and bust at
Cambridge, the so-called Phidean Ceres. It is, however,
very much smaller in its proportions. The Cambridge
statue, probably, represented a Avorshipper or priestess of
Demeter bearing a basket of sacred offerings, and was not
a Caryatid. I infer this from a passage in Pausanias
("■ 35> 4). where, in describing another temple of Demeter
at Hermione,he says : irpo %l tov vaov ywaiKwv Itpaaa/uivujv

FROM ATHENS TO ME GAR A. 37

7-1/ Ai'i/uriTpi liKOvag kaTi)Kaaiv, k.t.X ' Before the temple

stand portrait-statues of women who have held the office
of priestess to Demeter/

The statue of the Eleusinian goddess herself was doubt-
less consumed by the fire in the time of Aurelius, which
destroyed the temple. 1 In the same church we saw a
sepulchral stone, a round column four feet high, with a
sitting figure of Isis holding the sistrum, and the inscrip-
tion I(xo§ot»7 IctoSotov MtArjova. The tombstone, doubtless,
of one of a family devoted to the worship of Isis, perhaps
a priestess who had come from the distant Miletus to
worship at Eleusis, and died there. Demeter was naturally
identified with the Egyptian goddess. As Isis bewailed
the lost Osiris, so Demeter bewailed the lost Persephone.
The sorrows of the bereaved mother and the widowed
wife are, of all human sorrows, the deepest and the
most hopeless. Unable to find consolation on earth,
the sufferer yearns after heavenly sympathy, seeks and
surely finds, among the objects of her worship, one who
has borne the like afflictions, and is prompt to pity and
to redress. Thus, if the comparison may be made without
irreverence and without offence, the Isis and Demeter of
Paganism were shadows which suffering humanity created
for its comfort, in anticipation of the perfect type which
it afterwards found in the Mater Dolorosa.

At Eleusis there is little to note beyond the remains
of the propykea, whose enormous fragments of Pentelic
marble, blanched by their long burial, are scattered in
disorder, just as Dr. Clarke left them, uncared for. These

1 FinUiy, Greece under (he Romans, p. 7 j.

38 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

relics of past magnificence contrast sadly with the poor
cottages around them. Close by we observed a colossal
bust of some Roman emperor, unfinished and intended to
ornament a wall like those at Hampton Court on a larger
scale. Pausanias (i. 2, 4,) mentions a similar decoration in
a building at Athens : "AKparog" irpocrojirov iariv ol povov
tvioKoSofiriiuEvov toi\(o. The bust at Eleusis was perhaps in-
tended for that of Marcus Aurelius, who rebuilt the temple.
The portico, of which the ruins are still extant and evidently
belong to a much earlier age, probably remained un-
injured. The limits of the artificial platform on which
the temple stood, under the shelter of the citadel, as de-
scribed by Livy (xxxi. 25), are clearly marked. Unfortu-
nately it is covered with cottages, and the owners' rights
must be bought as a preliminary step to a systematic
excavation. At this point the guidance of our old cicerone
fails us, for, as he says, his own sense of propriety, and
the warning of a dream, forbade him to speak of what
was within the wall of the Hierum. 1 In the harbour
below, now shallow and occupied only by a few fishing-
boats, there are parallel lines of hewn stones under the
water ; doubtless the foundations of landing wharfs, as in
the two smaller harbours of the Piraic peninsula.

We left Eleusis at a quarter-past two. The road lead-
ing along a gentle slope between hills and sea, now
through shrubs and low brushwood, now through fallow
and cornfields, is smooth and level. We put our horses
to their best speed, and reached Megara before five. Be-
tween Attica and the Megarid there is no defensible

1 Paus. i. 38, 6.

FROM ATHENS TO MEGARA. 39

frontier ; hence it was easy for the Athenians to pour
in their troops, and so take partial and vicarious revenge
for the raids of the Peloponnesians in Attica. Indeed,
geographically, the Megarid seems to belong to Attica,
being separated from Corinth and Bceotia by high moun-
tain ranges ; and if the -tradition current among the
Megarians themselves can be trusted, it was also politi-
cally united with Attica till the Dorians of the Peloponnese
conquered it in the reign of Codrus. These Dorians also
possessed themselves of Salamis; but they were expelled
by the Athenians in Solon's time, and were afterwards
scarcely able to hold their own against their powerful
neighbours. The mountain barriers which divided them
from Boeotia and the Peloponnese, rendered them, espe-
cially in winter, dependent in a great measure upon the
supplies of Attica; hence the distress to which they were
reduced by the decrees of Pericles excluding them from
the Athenian markets. "When the war broke out, and to
this exclusion was added the annual raid of the Athenian
troops, their distress became extreme, and furnished
Aristophanes with one of his most comic scenes. The
Boeotian in the same play has not suffered any diminution
of his creature comforts.

The modern Megara occupies the site of the ancient —
two hills of no great elevation at a distance of two miles
from the sea, overlooking an even slope of fertile soil, a
winding shore, and beyond Salamis and iEgina, with the
archipelago of islets dotting the bay. In the time of
Pausanias it was, and long had been, a decayed place.
He says it was the only town which even the muni-
ficence of Hadrian could not cause to prosper. There

40 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

was a curse upon the place; 1 so it had shrunk and
shrunk into a beggarly town, crowded only with tem-
ples, containing some great works of Attic art and many
antiquities, genuine or apocryphal, and haunted by a tribe
of laquais-de-place of more than ordinary mendacity.
Of all these temples not a trace is left, at least not in
situ. We were taken to a kind of outhouse to see three
mutilated statues of draped figures, and we observed here
and there a block of marble or fragment of column. 2
Nor are there any means of ascertaining which of the
two hills must be identified with the Acropolis of Kar,
which with that of Alcathous ; but from the prominence
which our faithful exegetes gives to the former, and from
its probable etymology (Kar, kar a, head), it may be as-
sumed to be the higher of the two. The latter was forti-
fied with walls, attributed by tradition to the hands of
Apollo. 3 They were, therefore, polygonal, not Hellenic,
because such a legend implies a style of building no longer
in vogue; and not Cyclopean, a kind of work which would
be attributed to the rude strength of a monstrous giant,
rather than to the harmonious and equable power of a
god. The modern Megaia has quite the appearance of a
Turkish town: tortuous illpaved or unpaved streets; little
houses, each like a bandbox, with flat roofs. The excellent

Paus. i. 36, 3.

2 On what has been the pedestal of a statue I read the following
fragment : ttjv ap^iepetav twv 2e/3a(rrcoi/ 81a /3iov TroXvp.pei.av Tfipo-
rrdevovs (.■*) aperrjs cvextv icai cra>(ppoo-vvr]s kcii rcov eis ttjv narpi^a
<Pi\oTipia>v.

3 Theognis, a native of Megara, thus addresses the god (773):
' King PhoAms, thou with thine own hands didst build the towers of
our Acropolis (n6X«/ aKp^v), showing favour to Alcathous, son of Pelops.'

FROM ATHENS TO MEGARA. 41

khan in which we were lodged had a court-yard and a
kind of verandah of exceptional magnificence. The houses
are built for the most part of what Pausanias calls ' con-
chite' stone. I will quote his words, for they are as appli-
cable now as ever — ' The ATegarians are the only Greeks
who have this conchite, and many things in their city are
made of it. It is very white, and softer than other stone,
and there are sea-shells in it all through/ 1

Half-an-hour's walk through corn-fields brought us to
the hill by the shore, on which stood the Acropolis of the
ancient Nissea, now crowned with the ruins of a Frank
castle. In the walls I noticed large blocks of a blue-
veined marble, probably Hymettian; and lying on the
beach below, part of a Doric column, encrusted with shells
and fringed with seaweed. Both blocks and column may
have belonged to the temple which Pausanias mentions
as a ruin in his day. The port is a little bay, defended
on one side by the castle hill, and on the other by a
promontory, stretching far out to sea. Both hill and
promontory have at some prehistoric period been islands
off the shore. In front is the little island of Minoa,
joined anciently by a bridge to the promontory, where the
Athenians lay in ambush in a clay-pit before their night-
attack upon Niseea. 2 The fact of Minoa fronting Nissea,
and its being made, probably more than once, the basis
of operations for an invading force, has given rise to a
legend about a war between Minos and INusus. Of the
Megarian long walls not a trace remains. The soil is
alluvial, and the plough has passed two thousand times
over their site.

1 Paus. i. 44, 9. 3 Thucydides, iv. 6j.

CHAPTER III.

THE ISTHMVS CORINTH.

TTTE left Megara betimes in the morning. As we ascended
' " the mountain-side we turned out of the way to look
at a square fort of that rough-and-ready structure which
has no assignable date, being common to all times. As we
rounded the shoulder of the hill we had a glorious view
of the Saronic Gulf, studded with all its islands, rippling
in the morning breeze and flashing in the morning sun.
The road we took is called the hake skala (i.e. evil stair) y
and when we passed deserved the name better perhaps
than at any time before or since. Originally a foot-road
' for well-girt men/ made by the giant Skiron — much as
a spider makes its web — to entrap solitary travellers,
whom he threw over the rocks into the sea to fatten a
pet turtle withal, — it was enlarged by Hadrian into a road
wide enough for two carriages to pass. 1 The statement is
still attested by many wheel-marks in the rock. In course
of time it had degenerated into a horse-track. A portion
of it where the cliffs are steepest was blown up by General
Church in the War of Independence, just as it had been
broken up by the Peloponnesiaus in the Persian war to
arrest the progress of the Oriental invader. 2 At this

Paus. i. 44, 10.
Herod, vm. "ji. — jfo^eroi ip tu> 'io-tf/iw Kal <rvyx<>><TavTfs T))v
Siapcovida 6&6v, k.t.X.

THE ISTHMUS CORINTH. 43

point, therefore, travellers were compelled to pick their
way among the fragments as well as they might, descending
into the water and remounting by a precipitous track. As
we passed workmen were busy repairing the rupture, so
that at that moment it was worse than ever ; but, after all,
not alarming to any one who has travelled in the Alps.

There are two other roads to Corinth, one passing
near to the summit of the mountain, and a road still
more circuitous, more difficult, and therefore more defen-
sible, by the opposite flank. If the Athenians could have
gained possession of Megara, they might have defended
the passes of Mount Geranea, and being at the same time
masters of the sea, they would have sealed up the Pelopon-
nesians within their own peninsula, isolating them from
the Boeotians, and effectually protecting Attica. Hence
the bitterness with which they regarded the stubborn
little people who, with the clannish feeling so much more
marked in the Dorians than in the Ionians, clung to their
brethren through good and evil. It is probable that the
principal traffic in old times passed over the middle road.
It might indeed, at first sight, be inferred, from the passage
of Herodotus just quoted, that the Scironian road was the
only road in the time of the Persian war ; but this inference,
improbable in itself, is not warranted by the text of the
author. It was indeed the only road which they were able
effectually to render impracticable, as it was cut in the
rock along the side of a steep and, in places, precipitous cliff
overhanging the sea \ the road over the mountain offered no
such facilities for defence. Besides, if the Peloponnesians
could have thus effectually barred the advance of the
Persians at this point, there would have been no need for

44- NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

their entrenchments across the isthmus. In the late war
General Church occupied the central road, and built a
series of stone walls across it to afford cover for sharp-
shooters. This plan of defence would probably have been
of no avail before the introduction of fire-arms. At all
events, the Greeks did not attempt it against the Persians.
The coast-road along the Scironian rocks, we may infer
from Pausanias, was not practicable for carriages till
Hadrian's time. Whether the middle road was practicable
for carriages may be doubted. I could see no trace of
wheels, and incline to the negative.

How, then, did the ' Seven against Thebes' or the
Epigoni pass with their chariots from Argolis to Bceotia ?
Of course I do not regard these events as historical, but
the difficulty must have occurred to some matter-of-fact
critic. Again, how did mainlanders who entered their
chariots for games held in the peninsula, or vice versa,
get them thither ? Either the chariots were sent by sea,
as Hiero's must have been, or they were taken to pieces
and transported as so much baggage on the backs of pack-
horses or mules. The well-bred horses which were to
run in the races would be generally sent by sea, as being
less liable to accident than if they travelled by the rough
and stony tracks. It is certain that in the beginning of
the fifth century b.c there was nothing like a smooth
and continuous road between Athens and Sparta, else
Phidippides would not have gone on foot when so much
depended on his speed. 1

After passing the rocks we came about ten to the village

1 Herodotus, vi. io,.

THE ISTHMUS CORINTH. 45

of Kineta, which Colonel Leake supposes to be the site of
Cronimyon. The thick underwood which here lines the
shore hides all traces of antiquity, if such exist. Leaving
the woods, we paused to look at the singular and beautiful
colour of the landscape. All the hill-side was starred
thick with the white and lilac flowers of the sage-leaved
cistus and hoary with grey thyme ; and further off, where
the eye could no longer distinguish the separate flowers,
it presented a strange glossy surface, like a lawn covered
with a veil of silver tissue. Above the silvery slope a
wood of light-green, round-topped pines shone yellowing
in the sunlight, mixed with plots of flowering gorse. The
air was filled with the fragrance of the thyme, as our
horses trampled and cropped it.

At half-past eleven we came to a halt at Agios Theodoros,
a solitary little chapel by the seaside. We bathed while
Constantine lighted his fire and Alexander spread our table
under the shade of a lentisk, that abundant shrub which
occasionally, as here, grows into a tree.

In the wall of the little chapel is an inscription, 1 of
which this is a translation : —

1 1, Philostrata, am gone to the sources of my being,
leaving the bond wherewith nature bound me; for, after
completing my fourteenth year, in the fifteenth I left the

1 The inscriptiou runs thus : —

[<£i]Aoo"rpaTa (Heftr/na irrjyas els epa?
[X]enrovaa 8eo-pov a> cpvcris crvvei^e pe
eVi roi<r[i] 8exa yap recra-ap' (KTrkrjcracr (ttj
TrefxTTTO) to aoopa KaTaXekonra rrapBtvos
dnais diwpcpos rjtdeos 6tg> S' epa>s
Zoarjs eveo-Tiv a(pdova>s yrjpacrKeTW.

46 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

body, a virgin, childless, unwedded. Whosoever hath a
love of life, let him grow to old age unenvied.'

The sense and phraseology of this inscription show that
it was composed by some Platonist during that neutral
period, that Wasser-stillstand, which intervened between
the ebb of Pagan and the flow of Christian devotion, pro-
bably in the fourth or fifth century, when traces of the
old philosophy still survived the wreck of the old religion
within the Avails of Athens, Corinth, and the dwindling
cities of Greece. Clement Marot, who lived in a period
of similar spiritual stagnation, when the old forms of faith
had lost their power over the heart, wrote on a young
maid of honour of the Duchess of Ferrara an epitaph
singularly resembling that on Philostrata in tone and
spirit : —

De Beauregard Anne suis qui d'enfance

Laissay parents, pays, amis et France,

Pour suivre ici la Duchesse Renee,

Laquelle j 'ay depuis abandonnee,

Futur epoux, beaute, fleurissant age,

Pour aller veoir au ciel mon heritage,

Laissant le monde avec moindre soucy

Qu'en laissant France alors que vins icy.

Leaving Agios Theodoros at two o'clock, we came in
something more than an hour to Kalamaki, where the
Austrian steamer for Athens lands its passengers to cross
the isthmus. It is a little village with a custom-house. Its
old name was Schoinos, which is also the name for lentisk,
that grows so abundantly here. Had it been Schinos
(Anglice, ' squill '), one might have supposed it to have
been a nickname referring facetiously to the neighbouring
Krommyon (onion).

THE ISTHMUS CORINTH. 47

About a mile beyond Kalamaki is the sanctuary of
Poseidon, where we dismounted and stayed two hours.
On a subsequent occasion I was able to spend several
hours more on the spot. I shall put down here the
results of both investigations.

The peribolus, or sacred enclosure, is of so irregular a
shape, that it defies definition or description, and can only
be conceived by a plan, which will be found at the end of
the volume. It occupies the angle of a natural platform,
and its shape is owing to the nature of the ground. The
wall a b is built along the edge of a ravine fifty or sixty
feet in depth. Similarly the wall b c stands on the
crest of a steep bank, which is highest at b, and gradually
diminishes to c. The sides c d, d a, are built on a
level, a b formed part of the Isthmic wall, the remains
of which may be traced in an almost continuous line to-
wards the west, and are still discernible in places towards
the east also. There cannot be a doubt that this wall
occupies the place of the earthworks thrown up by the
Peloponnesians during the Persian invasion, for this is at
once the narrowest part of the isthmus and the most
defensible position, thanks to the ravine which intersects
it here.

The main part of the present wall is held by Col.
Leake to be clearly Hellenic, though we have no infor-
mation as to the time or occasion of its construction.
But when we reflect that, with the exception of the period
treated of by Thucydides, Greek history has come down
to us in mere fragments, we need not be surprised at the
omission. There were many occasions on which we may
conceive it to have been built. It has been frequently

48 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

repaired and restored by the successive owners of the
Morea.

The wall a d, running at right angles to the former, is
even stronger. It is furnished with towers at intervals,
so that the peribolus forms a- fortress of itself quite inde-
pendent of the Isthmic wall. Its construction clearly
proves it to be a military work, not the mere boundary
line of the sacred ground. On the outside of this wall
are the remains of some houses, and of a small church
apparently of great antiquity. "Within the enclosure there
remains not a trace of either the temple of Poseidon or
any of the other temples mentioned by Pausanias. On
my second visit I found at a, tumbled down among the
fragments of the wall, a great many drums of small Doric
columns, with portions of an architrave and cornice ; the
chord of the fluting measures four inches. These, which
being partly hid among shrubs, have not been noticed by
any other traveller, belonged in all probability to the pro-
pylsea of the sacred enclosure. They are of grey lime-
stone, and, I think, of ancient workmanship. At this
point an artificial slope has been constructed for a road,
and at a little distance a cutting has been made in a low
hill for the same purpose. There must also, I think, have
been another entrance at b, where the wall curves inward.
Among the broken ruins of the wall one may trace a flight
of broad steps. Close to this is a fragment of a Doric
column; probably the same which Col. Leake saw and
supposed to have belonged to the temple of Poseidon, as
my measurement of the fluting coincides with his.

The entrance at b, I conceive, may have been ' the
sacred entrance ' mentioned in an inscription (now in
the museum of Verona), which records the repairs

PLAN OF THE ISTHMIAN HIERUM

II, u, 2

J

r 7
S c

f

c

B
E

W 4

/ VaturaJ i;n,la< Z.AnciatiL Bridge 3. Tlieatre-. 4. Stadium

5 I:, n mi

J II /.ran faJp

Ionian, John II Tarka- U Son II- n:-,-i Strands.

THE ISTHMUS CORINTH. 49

executed by a high priest with a Roman name, and
so called as being that by which processions passed
from the stadium to the temple. It is obvious that
there must have been another entrance besides that
at a, for that is on the side furthest removed from
Corinth and from the stadium, and they would scarcely
make a circuitous route, and descend the hill, merely
for the pleasure of reascending it. If the temple stood
at c, which is the most likely place, exactly fronting the
entrance at b, the avenue of statues and pine-trees, of
which Pausanias speaks, most likely extended to a, by
which he, approaching from Megara, entered the Hierum.
The temple of Palsemon, which, he says, was on the left,
would stand in the corner at b. The whole space is now
vacant, except that there is a little church at d. Close to
it I noticed a small unfluted column of cipollino, and in
another part of the enclosure a similar column of white
marble. Outside, at e, close to b, the side of the glen is
faced with an ancient Hellenic wall ; at the bottom of
which are oblong rectangular holes, clearly intended for
drainage, and, I should think, meant to carry off the
water from the concavity of the stadium, which, from its
position and shape, would be liable to be flooded. The
stadium occupies a dell between two spurs of a hill south
of the Hierum. 1 The cheimarrous, or winter-torrent,
which had formed the dell, was diverted, or else carried
underground, to the outlets just mentioned. It has now
resumed its natural course, and broken through the semi-
circular end of the stadium. Not a vestige remains of

Pindar's ecrXoii H(\ottos 7rrvxai (Nem. ii. 2l), and fiao-aat
'ladfiov (Isth. iii. 11).

E

50 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

the seats of white marble which Pausanias mentions as
* worth seeing/ Its area is filled with fragments of
pottery, and overgrown with tufts of wild thyme, lentisk,
and sage. The unbroken stillness of the desert now pre-
vails from clay to day, from year to year, in the spot
which for so many ages, at each recurring festival, rang to
the shouts of the eager crowd that thronged its marble
steps. This stadium, however, has an especial claim upon
our regard, more than the sentimental interest which
attaches to all such sites. It was in the mind of St. Paul
when he wrote to the Corinthians 1 — ' Know ye not that

1 I Cor. Lx. 24. — ovk olBare on 01 ev crrabito Tpe^ovres 7rdvres pev
rpexovaiv, k.t.X. And in the 26th verse he refers to the pugilistic
combats of the Isthmian games, using the remarkable technical term
inrcoTTidfa, so inadequately rendered in our version by ' keep under.'
These pugilistic encounters took place probably in the theatre, for
Lucian, speaking of them, says {Anacharsis, ii.) — ev tijXikovtois Oedrpois
oid o~v Birjyfj, to 'ladpol Kai to ev ^OXvpiriq. Were this, however, not
probable on other grounds, the words just quoted would not be con-
clusive, as Oearpov may mean the mass of spectators as well as the
place properly so called. I quote the Anacharsis of Lucian, chiefly
because it throws such remarkable light on some of St. Paul's allu-
sions. Compare the following : —

A vax- • • ■ raXanrcopovpevoi Kai diaxvvovTes to. kuWt] ko\ tci peyeQr)
T H Y a f x H- ( ! } KaL toIs vircoTTtois, ous pr)\ov Kal kot'ivov eytcpareis yevoivro
viK7)0~avTes . . . ardp, elire pot, navres avra ~kapfidvovo-iv ol dya>-
viarrai; 2 o X. ov8apa>s, dX\a eis e£ dndvrcov 6 Kparrjo-as aircov.
Ava%. eir & 26\cov iiri ra> dSijXw Ka\ dp(pift6\a> rrjs viKrjs too-ovtoi

iTovova-i ; and with regard to the spectators, ak\oi 8e a\\a X 66i

navres e'yKovovo-i Ka\ dvaTnjSacriv coo-rrep Beovres iiri roil avrov ptvovres
Kai is to ai/w o-vvaWopevoi XaKTi'£ouo-£ tov depa. (lb. 4.) The verbal
coincidences are so numerous and so striking, as almost to persuade us
that Lucian was acquainted with St. Paul's language j and, if this be
so, it goes far to support the notion entertained by some that Lucian
was a renegade Christian. Certainly the author of the Philopatris,

THR ISTHMUS CORINTH. 51

tlicy which run in a stadium, run all, but one receivetli
the prize V and, continuing the allusion, he assumes their
familiarity with the careful and laborious training of the
athletes. f Now he that striveth for the mastery is tem-
perate in all things. They do it to obtain a corruptible
crown ' — the crown of pine, taken, doubtless, from the
sacred trees within the Hierum — ' but we an incorruptible.
So run that ye may obtain.'

About one hundred and fifty yards west of the Hierum
are the remains of the theatre, consisting of rough stones,
mortar, and a mass of small pebbles. It was faced with
marble, like the stadium. 1 Spon, who visited the spot in
1676, speaks of 'les beaux restes d'un theatre de pierre

which bears his name, had read the account of St. Paul's speech to
the Athenians on Mars' Hill — fjpels 8e top iv 'Adrjvats ' AyvaxrTov
fffievpovres, k.t.\. (Luc. Philopatris, xxix.)

If it were certain that the above passages in the Anacharsis were
written by one who had in his mind the words of the epistle, we
should then have strong ground for assigning to iyKparfverai, in
verse 25, a meaning corresponding with that of e'yKpare'is, ' makes
himself master of.' This would give a peculiar and appropriate force
to Toivvv in verse 2^>, and the general sense of the Apostle's words
would run thus : —

' Know ye not that they who run in a stadium run indeed all, but
one receives the prize ? So rim that ye may win (i.e. choose a race in
which you shall all get a prize). In the Christian race every one who
contends obtains all prizes ; the athletes of the Isthmian games contend
to win a coiTuptible crown, but we an incorruptible. I therefore run
confidently, having no uncertainty about the result ; I fight in very
earnest, not like a mere spectator mechanically mimicking the pugilists ;
my adversary in the ring is my body, which I bruise and maltreat like
a very slave, lest after I have proclaimed rules to others, I myself
should be disgraced when put to the final proof.'

Qeas Se a£ia tun piv Qearpov ecrri fie arabiov \160v Xevxov.
— Pans. ii. 1, -.

E 2

52 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

blanche/ but neither he nor his companion Wheler men-
tions the stadium. Pausan*ias, when he speaks of f white
stone/ always means ' marble/ Now, as Mr. Spon is by
no means to be implicitly trusted, it may be doubted
whether he really records what he saw or merely mis-
translates and misunderstands what Pausanias saw. On
the high ground above the theatre are several fragments
of white marble, and some large wrought stones. About
two hundred yards beyond the theatre, to the westward,
is the bed of a torrent, narrow and deep. Descending
here by chance through some thick brushwood, I found a
bridge not mentioned by any traveller, and unknown to
our guide. The torrent being nearly dry, I was able to
pass through the arch and measure it. An arch it un-
questionably is. It has been repaired and elongated
towards the south, apparently in Roman times, as mortar
is there used ; but the older part has no mortar, and has
all the characteristics of the best times of Hellenic
masonry. The arch is about four feet wide, six feet high,
and twenty-seven feet long. The stones of which it is
composed are of great size — some of them six feet in
length. A little lower down, the stream finds its outlet
into the ravine by a natural chasm, into which I made
my way without much difficulty. Above the bridge are
the remains of a tower, built of uu wrought stones and
mortar; there are also traces of late walls at intervals,
from this place to the upper end of the stadium. From
this I infer that the fortress, comprising at first only the
Hierum, was at a later period enlarged, so that the right
bank of the torrent and the northern side of the stadium
formed part of its exterior defences.

THE ISTHMUS CORINTH. 53

To return to my narrative. Yielding at last to the
impatience of our guide, we left the ruins at half-past
five, and soon came to a smooth expanse of ground
(perhaps the very site of the ancient Hippodrome) which
suggested the idea of a race; and a small Pinus maritima 1
close to the goal furnished a crown for the head of the
victor, — or, in literal fact, a sprig for his hat. Soon
after, in the twilight, we passed the great quarries out of
which Corinth was built. It was dark when we reached
our journey 's end.

Corinth has retrograded in civilization since the date
of the Handbook. The paragraph headed ' Corinth : Inns/
may now be written in identical terms with the famous
chapter on Irish snakes — ( There are none/ The ' civil
and attentive landlord of the Great Britain ' has died, and
left no sign ; and as to the ' other inn' mentioned in the
book, people denied all knowledge of its existence, past
or present.

We were received in a private house. After dinner
we strolled by moonlight through the village — for modern
Corinth is but a village — and wandered among the old
columus which have looked down upon the rise, the
prosperity, and the desolation of two successive Corinths.

Colonel Leake, after an elaborate examination of the

1 In equestrian contests, however, the crown seems to have been,
not pine, but parsley, as at Neniea. Acopicou o-Tfcfidvoofia creXiVcov
(Pind. Isth. ii. 15). The aiXivov was a favourite plant with the
Dorians, and gave its name to one of their cities in Sicily. Perhaps
they chose it from its resemblance in sound to "EXX771/, as the Ionians
chose their flower, the 'iov. ' Canting,' even in heraldry, is of Pagan
invention.

5i- NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

question, has arrived at the conclusion that these columns
are the remains of a temple erected probably by the Bac-
ehiadee in the beginning of the eighth century before
Christ, and certainly not later than the middle of the fol-
lowing century, and are therefore almost as old as Homer.
' Whatever be the actual date, it is certain that we have
here the most ancient temple-ruins in Greece. We not
only find in them the narrow intercolumniation, tapering
shafts, projecting capitals, and lofty architraves which are
the attributes of the early Doric, and which were perpe-
tuated in the architecture of the western colonies of
Greece, but we find also that the chief characteristic of
those buildings is still stronger in the Corinthian temple
than in any of them, its shaft being shorter in proportion
to the diameter, than in any known example of the Doric
order, and, unlike that of any other Doric column of large
dimensions, being composed of a single block of stone.' '

Colonel Leake is disposed to assign the ruins to the
temple of Athene Chalinitis. But it appears to me that
there is just as much reason for thinking that they be-
longed to the temple of Fortune, or that of All the
Gods, or that of Apollo. The temple of Athene was
adjacent to the theatre, 2 and the theatre was in all like-
lihood on the slope of the Aero-Corinth ; for it is not
probable that the Corinthians alone, of all the Greeks,
would neglect facilities offered by nature. Hence we should
infer that the said temple was nearer to the foot of the
hill than the existing ruins are.

Colonel Leake's Morea, vol. iii. cli. xxviii. p. 2J.9.
2 Paus. ii. 4, 5.

THE ISTHMUS CORINTH. 55

But it would be a waste of time to attempt to dis-
cuss the topography of ancient Corinth ; of all the
buildings, sacred and secular, of the old city, no trace
remains, except a few unsightly heaps of Roman brick-
work, which have outlived their history as completely
as the pyramids. The ancient walls, famed for their
dimensions, have entirely disappeared. Colonel Leake
describes an amphitheatre excavated in the rock on the
eastern side of the modern town, and supposes that, as
Pausanias does not mention it, it may be posterior to
his time. I did not take the trouble to visit this work,
as it was ( only Roman ' of a comparatively contemptible
antiquity, and belonging to a period with which one has
little acquaintance and no sympathy. Were such a relic
in Britain, people would go hundreds of miles to visit it
as one of the earliest monuments of human labour. In
Greece people do not care to turn a few hundred yards
out of their way for its sake. I have siuce regretted this
and similar omissions of laziness and insouciance ; this
especially, as I should have liked to see whether there be
any ground for a hypothesis which has occurred to me,
that the old theatre was on the same site, and was altered
into an amphitheatre when the refined amusements of the
Greek citizen had given place to the brutal amusements
of the Roman soldier, and mimic tragedy failed to move
men whose eyes were feasted with the sight of real blood.
In this way we account for the disappearance of the
theatre, which is generally, by the nature of the case, the
most indestructible of all the monuments of an ancient
Greek city.

We rose betimes in the morning to ascend the Aero-

50 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

Corinth. The upper part of this magnificent natural for-
tress is all precipitous crag, the lower part a succession of
steep slopes, propping the wall as it were. The rock, a
grey limestone, overlies a bed of red schist, and at the
point of junction land-springs ooze out, which keep the
slopes green with grass till far in the summer. The hill
culminates in two summits ; between and about which is
a space of broken but still available ground, girt with a
winding battlemented wall of medieval structure, shining
white in contrast with green-sward and grey rock, and
suggesting the simile of a necklace carelessly flung on.
We reached the fortress gates in about an hour, and were
admitted by one of the half-dozen old soldiers who form
the garrison. The most sheltered part of the inclosure is
filled with the ruins of a Turkish village. Among these
is a mosque, with its minaret like the chimney of a fur-
nace. There is another mosque near the highest point of
the hill. On the very summit stood a temple of Aphro-
dite Urania, 1 to whom the voluptuous Corinthians devoted
the highest of their high places, and just below it a well.
Every trace of the temple has vanished ; but the well is
there still, ' full/ as in Strabo's time, c of sweet and clear
water.' This is the famous Peirene, the supposed source
of the fountain of that name in the lower town, the pride

1 That Aphrodite was worshipped at Corinth under this epithet
may be inferred from a fragment of Pindar (ix. I, 3), olpaviav wrapevai
vorjfia noTTav 'A(ppo8iTav : though the passage of Pausanias which
Dissen quotes as direct authority for the statement (ii. 23. 8), relates
to Argos, not to Corinth. The second book of Pausanias is called
Corrnthiaca — hence Dissen's mistake — but really includes Sicyon and
the Argive cities.

THE ISTHMUS CORINTH. 57

and boast of the ancient Corinthians. And this was how
they came by it : — TVhen Zens had carried off iEgina, the
daughter of Asopus, Sisyphus, who was somehow in the
secret, offered to give information to the bereaved father
on condition of being provided with a supply of water in
Aero-Corinth. The bargain was struck. Asopus gave
the fountain, and Zeus sent the tell-tale to dree his dole
in Hades. But this last particular, in Pausanias's opinion,
wants confirmation.

The panoramic view which the summit commands is
widely famous, and deserves all its fame. It has been
described by many travellers; by so many indeed, that
another description may be thought superfluous. Yet
though the point of view remains the same for all, the
prospect is infinitely varied according to the hour of the
day, the season of the year, and the conditions of the
. atmosphere. Sometimes the air is so clear and so still,
and the outlines of the most distant objects so distinct,
that the hills are dwarfed to the appearance of the hills
on a raised map. It was very different as we saw it.
Towards the north a blue mist filled the valleys and hid
the bases of the hills, and lay upon the distant sea, so that
it was hard to distinguish where the vapour ended and
the water began. The summits of Helicon, Parnassus,
and the iEtolian hills, still covered with snow, stood up
bold and clear with deep purple sky behind ; but lower
down the outlines grew less and less distinct, the masses
seemed less and less solid, fading away into ethereal
dimness and ' the blue hyacin thine haze ' which ' lay
dreaming round their roots/ There was something
strangely beautiful in this inversion of the common

58 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

conditions of nature. The earth-born giants seemed to
have scaled heaven at last.

Turning round towards the east, we have before us
the sharp ridge of Geranea stretching out a long penin-
sula into the Corinthian Gulf; then Parnes, Pentelicus,
and Hymettus; then the Saronic Gulf, studded with
islands and glimmering in the sunshine. Towards the
south the prospect is comparatively limited by the high
table land and hills of Argolis. The lower slopes of the
valleys are covered with cornfields, and the higher with
tracts of wild brushwood. A little to the west of south
the rocky, castle-crowned peak, which is called Pendes-
kouphia, occupies the foreground ; and beyond it are seen
the mountains that stand about Nemea, and prominent
among them the Phouka, shaped like a truncated cone.

To the west we look upon a succession of long hills
sloping down to the Gulf of Corinth, breaking away at
intervals in abrupt steps white like chalk, but edged above
with red ; doubtless the decomposed schist washed down
by rains. Where the slopes are bare the colour is red or
grey; where covered with shrubs, like the level table-
lands, dark olive-green. Beyond these are higher ranges
of grey limestone dotted with black pines, and high over
all the snow r y peaks of Cyllene. Immediately below us
to the north we see the village of Corinth standing about
those dark columns. The ground about it, now green
with wheat, and maize, and vines, descends in a succession
of terraces to the belt of barren sand which lines the
shore.

In wandering over the summit of the hill I found
several wells opening into large covered tanks ; doubtless

THE ISTHMUS — CORINTH. 59

the same which Strabo says he was told of, but did not
see (p. 379). These, with the perennial spring before
mentioned, secured the Aero-Corinth from what must
have been the weak point of the isolated mountain-
fortresses of Greece — want of water. But for this fatal
defect, the Peloponnesus has a thousand fortresses as
impregnable as the Aero-Corinth, though scarce one so
spacious, and none situated in so commanding a position.
Since the introduction of gunpowder Aero-Corinth is
assailable from several points. Even before that date,
when ' arbaletriers' served for artillery men, the fortress
was attacked from Pendeskouphia and another post to the
northward. The Greek Chronicle of the French Conquest
of the Morea says (1474-1479): —

Aonrov Start eVt to ftovvlv tov Kacrrpov rr/s KopivSov
nXarv /cat /xe'ya (f)o[3ep6v Kai aTvavco eVt to Kaarpov
evpio~KeTai Trpos peo~rjpl3piav tov eneivov tov KaaTpov
okuti eva [iovvonovkov, Tpa\6vi yap pe o~TTifKaiov,
Kai a>pio-ev ivTavda 6 TIpiyKiwas /cat cnvavca eKTiae KaaTpov
MovvTeo-Kovfie to uivopaaav, ovtcos to Kpa^ovv 7raXat.

Thus we see that the word Pendeskouphia, or ' Five-
caps/ the origin of which has, I dare say, puzzled many
ingenious topographers, is nothing but a corruption of
Montesquiou, itself compounded of ' mont ' and an old
word ' esquieu,' 1 in Provencal ecuelh, in modern French
ecueil. 2 So that a word at first sight seeming to be
compounded of two obvious modern Greek words, is
really derived ultimately from two Latin words, ' mons '
and ' scopulus.'

The passage I have quoted, by way of specimen, from

1 Buchon, Moree, i. 87. 2 Diez, Lexicon Ling. Rom.

60 NOTES OF STUDY AXD TRAVEL.

the Chronicle, tells how Guillaume de Ville Hardouin,
Prince of the Morea, aided by Guillaume de la Roche,
the Megas Kyr, or Great Lord, Grand Duke, of Athens,
took the Aero-Corinth after it had held out in possession
of the Greeks for forty-two years. The French first
established themselves in the Morea in 1205, and the
Aero-Corinth was captured in 1247. 'When they finally
abandoned the principality in 1333, the fortress reverted
of course to the Greek emperors. In 1458 Mohammed
the Second, after subduing the rest of the Morea, gained
possession of it also ; partly by the effect of a battery
which he established on Pendeskouphia, and partly by the
treachery of the Greek archbishop. So, from that time
to the War of Liberation in 1821-1827, this ' fortress,
formed for freedom's hands,' remained in the occupation
of Turk or Venetian ; the one tyrannical and oppressive,
both aliens to the people whom they ruled. Freedom's
hands were too weak to hold it; and, indeed, considering
the heterogeneous elements of which the population was
composed, Sclavonian, Albanian, Greek, it would have
been hard to say which were Freedom's hands. Not that
the poet had any meaning in particular when he used the
phrase.

He fagoted his notions as they fell,

And if they rhymed and rattled, all was well.

W 1

CHAPTER IV.

NEMEA, MYCENvE, AND TIRYNS.

"E left Corinth about eleven. As we were riding
through the street a man with a large basket, passing
in great haste, tendered to each of us a handful of boiled
wheat; what is called < fermety ' in the south of England,
and, more correctly, ' frumenty ' in the north. I was
informed that, when a death occurs, one of the relatives
goes round the town offering this boiled wheat to every
one he meets. What is the origin or meaning of the
custom I cannot discover.

Turning to the left, we rode through a narrow ravine
whose chalky sides painfully reflected the sunlight. In
two hours we passed the site of Cleonse; f a little city'
in Pausanias's time, and now a desert. The direction of
the walls may be traced, but there is not enough above
ground whereby to test the accuracy of Homer's epithet,"
'well-built.' 1 Pursuing our way over high and stony
ground tufted with low shrubs, marked here and there
with traces of an ancient carriage-road, we reached in an
hour and twenty minutes 2 the edge of the tableland, and
looked down upon a level plain of rare verdure, surrounded

1 Iliad, ii. 570.
2 Mr. Grote (vol. ii. p. 625) says that the grove of Nemea was less
than two miles from Cleonas. This is an error.

G2 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

on all sides by bleak, grey, barren hills worn by the
winter torrents into a thousand furrows. Every glen
contributes its runlet ; many a landspring, too, unseen
feeds the herbage and helps to swell the river Nemea,
which serpentines through the deep alluvium of the plain,
and at last finds an outlet, not visible from the place
where we stand, between two lofty peaks which rise to
the northward. The f deep-plained/ ' the ' well-watered "
Nemea ! To the west side, ridge above ridge, are the moun-
tain barriers of Arcadia. A white track winding up the
opposite slope and along a glen which opens out right in
front, leads to the site of old Phlius. Hence Pindar 3
speaks of Nemea as 'lying under Phlius' hills primeval,
bare of shade/ not clothed with dark forests, like Helicon
and Parnassus, the hills which looked down on his own
Boeotian plain. Strabo mentions Nemea as lying between
Cleonoe and Phlius. The ordinary road between these
places doubtless took the course which we have been
following, and, crossing the plain, ascended again by the
white track of which I have spoken above. Pindar else-
where 4 calls the Nemean festival ' the Cleoneau contest ;'
partly because the place lay still nearer to Cleonse than

1 PaOvneSos Nefteiti. — Pindar. Nem. iii. 30.

8 evvdpov Seperjs, — Theocr. xxv. 182.
iVeffi. iv. 4<5 — fiorava re viv ivoff a Xeovros viKacravr epe(f>'
daKiois <&Klovvtos inr wyvylois opeaiv. Critics are agreed to ti - ans-
late aa-Kiois here as ' shady,' considering the a to he intensive ; but I
think the other rendering is much more probable. The description
given in the text is almost verbatim what I wrote on the spot.
Pindar's evcpvXkos Ne/^ea {Isth. v. 61) refers to the grove of cypresses
around the temple. — Paus. ii. 15, 2.

4 Nem. iv. 16.

XLMLA, MYCEN.F., AND T1BTNS. 03

to Phlius, and partly because the people of Cleonae
were by right presidents of the games. Below, on the
level, rise three tall columns, two of them supporting
a fragment of architrave ; on the side of a hill to the
left are the remains of a stadium ; and last, but not
least, a few hundred yards below to the right, is a ruinous
Turkish fountain, and near it a spring of water. Here we
halted for rest and luncheon, and afterwards walked to
the stadium. At first sight it presents, as Colonel Leake
says, the appearance of a theatre, so short are the earth-
banks on each side of the semicircular end. That it is a
stadium, however, there can be no doubt, as there are
traces of masonry supporting a cross-wall at a distance of
something more than two hundred yards from the semi-
circle, the normal length of the stadium. I do not think,
from their position, that the ends of the embankments can
have been carried away, as Colonel Leake suggests, by
winter rains. I rather suppose that they have never
existed. Nature has not done so much here as in many
other sites, and to complete the stadium would require the
construction of artificial embankments and a great amount
of labour. Either the cost was too great in a place so
poor and so remote, or the natural banks, being very high,
afforded sufficient room for the spectators; or, again,
some temporary scaffolding might have been put up at
each festival for additional accommodation. In the face
of a scaur above the stadium is a conspicuous cavern -
mouth. I wonder that it has not been claimed on behalf
of the Nemean Lion.

Mounting our horses, we rode down to the temple.
The wall which fenced the sacred cypress-grove about the

fit NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

temple may still be traced at intervals. In one corner a
church has been built out of the ruins, and is now a ruin
itself. The three tall Doric columns look down upon the
disjecta membra of their prostrate brethren. Thereby
hangs one of those puzzles on which archeologists love to
exercise their ingenuity. The slender proportions of these
columns — each having the length of six diameters — and
approximating to the rules of the Ionic order, seem to
indicate that the edifice is of late construction. On the
other hand, the roof had fallen already when Pausanias
saw it, and it is more probable that a new temple would
be erected when the games were growing in popularity,
than during the period of their decline. Colonel Leake
conjectures that it was built about the time of Pindar,
and accounts for the inordinate height of the columns by
supposing that among the lofty hills a tall building would
be more appropriate than in a town.

I cannot agree with this theory. The towering hills do
not inspire the architect with emulation, but rather produce
a sense of the littleness of all human work. The lofty
spires of English churches are to be found not in Cum-
berland — puny rivals of Skiddaw and Helvellyn — but in
the flats and fens of Lincolnshire, with nothing earthly to
dispute their proud pre-eminence.

On leaving Nemea we crossed a ridge of hills of no
great elevation towards the south-east, and descending a
glen, joined the direct road from Corinth to Argos. This
is the road known by the name of Tretos, or ' the per-
forated;' not, I conceive, in consequence of the caverns in
the neighbouring rocks, which are not more numerous
hereabouts than elsewhere, but because the glen itself is,

NEMEA, MYCENJE, AND TJRYNS. 65

as it were, drilled through the rock. And drilled it has
been by the stream which flows at the bottom. We saw,
or fancied we saw, frequent wheel-marks in the rocks, and
we know that this was the direction of a carriage-road.
But from my subsequent observations I learnt to distrust
these marks. The ordinary mode of carrying wood in
Greece is to tie the heavier ends of the poles on each side
to the back of the horse or donkey, and suffer the other
ends to trail along the ground, thus making two parallel
ruts which in course of time may attain the depth of and
be mistaken for wheel-tracks. When a depression is once
made, it becomes a channel for the winter rains, and so is
smoothed and deepened.

During the War of Independence the Greeks inflicted
in this pass a tremendous defeat upon the Turks; and
for years after, the bones of unburied thousands showed
where the fight, or rather massacre, had been. Now
all traces are obliterated by a luxuriant growth of
dwarf planes, oleander, myrtle, holly, and two kinds of
arbutus.

By-and-bye the glen opened out into the plain of A.rgos ;
and after three hours' ride from Nemea, we halted at a
lonely, poverty-stricken house, called the Khan of Khar-
vata. We were lodged in an upper room with mud walls,
holes for windows, and a roof through which at night I
watched the stars. The sumptuous dinner provided by
our cook presented an absurd contrast to the squalor of
our apartment. The absurdity was often repeated, and
always met with indulgent toleration.

On the following morning we walked to the ruins of
Mycenre, passing through the village of Kharvata on our

66 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

way. These ruins have been described minutely by Colonel
Leake, popularly by Mr. Mure, succinctly by the author
of the Handbook, and variously by other travellers. They
have been so elaborately measured, drawn, delineated in
ground -plans and sections, that to give another detailed
account would be merely to reiterate what others have
already said. I shall therefore only notice a few points on
which I fancy I have something of my own to say, for
the rest referring my readers to the above-mentioned
authorities, and merely prefixing a brief general sketch
in order to make myself intelligible to those who have not
the means of consulting the books which I recommend.

In the chain of mountains which bounds the plain of
Argos to the westward, between two eminent and prominent
giants, is a narrow glen, which opens out as it descends
and terminates towards the plain in a tongue of tableland
(if the term may be used of ground only comparatively
level). On the south side is a profound and precipitous
crag ; on the north a rugged, stony steep ; and at the foot
of crag and steep, on either side, a mountain-stream. At
the western extremity of this rocky platform a long ridge
stretches downwards to the plain, trending southwards as
it descends, with sides sloping gently on the left, steeply
on the right, to the bed of the respective torrents, which
join in one at the apex of the triangle. The platform,
thus impregnable on three sides, and commanding, from
its position, an abundant supply of water from the natural
drainage of the hills, unites those indispensable requisites
which the earliest inhabitants of Greece always sought in
the sites of their cities. If there were not one stone left
upon another, we might still affirm with certainty that a

NEMEA, MYCENJEj AND TIRYNS. 67

city had once stood there. As it is, both the site and the
extant remains agree with all ancient testimony, from
Homer to Pausanias, to prove that here, ' in a nook of the
horse-pasturing plain of Argos, stood the city of the
Mycenae, rich in gold.' ' ' Besides other portions of the
circuit-wall there remains the gate, and there are lions
standing over it, and they say that these also were the
handiwork of the Cyclopes, who made the wall at Tiryns
for Prcetus.' 2 Thus seventeen centuries ago — nay, six
centuries before that, at the birth of history — these walls
were of a fashion which had even then so utterly passed
away — of an antiquity which was left so completely without
record, that, in the belief of the men who dwelt beside
them, they had been piled by fabulous monsters for a
mythic king. A story which no more contains any
fruitful germ of truth, than the name which the Suffolk
peasants have given to the Dyke that crosses the heath at
Newmarket. From the passage just quoted we see that
neither Pausanias, nor those who told the legend, recognised
the distinction which some antiquaries draw between
Cyclopean and polygonal building. There are specimens
of both in the Avails of Mycenee; but the latter prepon-
derates, and is exclusively employed about the Gate of
Lions. If the term Cyclopean be employed at all, it
would be well to employ it in the sense in which it was
used by those who invented it, as a common term for
both styles. In the earlier, huge blocks unwrought are

1 Homer, Od. iii. 263. iEgisthus, pvx<{> "Apyeos ImrofioToio ttoW
Ayapepvoverjv ciXoxov #e'AyeoV eTreeacriv ; and, after slaying Agamem-
non (30 <j), enrdfTes S' rjvaacrc Trokv)(pv<joio MvKrjvrjs.
2 Paus. ii. 16, 4.
F 2

68 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

piled one upon another, and the interstices filled with
smaller stones ; in the later, the stones are smoothed at
one end and on the sides — but not squared — and fitted
exactly each to each, so that the external face of the wall
presents a smooth, compact mass of irregular polygons. 1
The first is the work of Kratos and Bia, the second shows
the hand of Prometheus. Prometheus has been concerned
also in the plan of the fortifications. The weak point of
the position is towards the west. Here accordingly there
is an inner and an outer line of wall, and the gate, more-
over, is recessed, so that the assailant had a wall on each
side. The two walls, by the way, which lead up to the
gate are not quite parallel, as is generally stated. The
stone above, containing the famous bas-relief, is not ' green
basalt/ but grey limestone ; whether it has been a triangle
or an irregular pentagon in shape, as the top is broken off,
must remain doubtful. Above the door of the c Treasury
of Atreus ' is a triangular space, which has very likely
been filled with a similar stone ; on the other hand, over
the little postern in the north-west side of the wall, there

1 Euripides {Hercules Furens, 944), speaking of these very walls of
Mycense, calls them

Ku»cAco7r<]oi/ fia6pa
(poiviKi Kavovi Kai tvkois f]p/J.oafitva,

from which we see that not rudeness merely, but massiveness and an-
tiquity, were the characteristics of the works which the Greeks of that
date attributed to the Cyclopes. Similar in the poet's fancy were the
walls of Troy, which he calls (Troades, 814) Kavovtov rvKia/j-ara <i>oi/3ov ,-
and such, doubtless, were the walls of the Megarian Acropolis before
mentioned, which were also attributed to Apollo, and which, it may
be, suggested to Euripides the description of the wall of Troy.

NEMEA, MYCENAE, AND TIRYNS. 69

are two stones which seem to have been pentagonal. As
over the postern, so in all probability over the great gate,
there were two sculptured stones of the same size and
shape, one facing inwards, corresponding to that which
remains towards the outside. From Pausanias's words
one would infer that there were more than a pair of lions
over the gate. In his time perhaps the interior stone
was still extant. The unhesitating way in which he calls
them lions, indicates that the figures had their heads then.
From the parts which now remain they might be called
panthers or dogs, anything with paws, being designed with
a truly heraldic contempt for the specific distinctions of
natural history. They are, indeed, exactly like c supporters*
ramping on either side of a kind of pedestal, the top of
w r hich is unfortunately broken. There are many conjec-
tures as to what it has been ; at present it looks more
like a music-stool than anything else. It is evident
that Pausanias attached no importance to the symbol,
whether he knew or not what it was intended to re-
present.

In the absence of any ancient authority, having no
other example of imitative art of the period, and being
utterly ignorant of the religion and polity of the people
who set up the stone, of which the upper and most signifi-
cant part is gone, we shall do well to abstain from con-
jectures, which in such a case are as aimless as the arrows
which children shoot into the air. Colonel Mure's notion
that it is the symbol of Apollo Aguieus may be true or it
may not; but that the scene of the Agamemnon is laid
before this gate, and that the bas-relief above is directly

70 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

addressed in the words "AwoXXov ayvtar* is a theory quite
inadmissible. The scene of the Agamemnon is laid not
before the gate of the city, but before the gate of the
palace, and the Aguieus here invoked is such a symbol as
every householder in Athens set up before his own door. 2
The mention of the Agamemnon reminds me of somebody
else's theory, that iEschylus meant the scene to be laid at
Argos, not Myceiue, because the summit of Arachne, the
last link in the fiery beacon-chain, is visible from the
former, but not from the latter city. Such rigorous
exactness, I am convinced, is quite alien from the spirit of
iEschylus, and of all the old poets. iEschylus and every
one of his audience saw daily the top of Arachne towering
pre-eminent among the Argive hills. No one's sense of
probability would be shocked by the natural supposition
that it could be seen from Mycenae, which lay almost at
its feet. We must not fetter the free mind of the ancient
poets by such matter-of-fact laws, nor, as readers, expect
them to observe restrictions which their auditors did not
impose. Those who saw no absurdity in the arrival of
Agamemnon only half-an-hour after his telegraphic mes-
sage, were not likely to cavil on a minute point as to the
topography of a foreign country. On the other hand, I do
not venture to affirm that iEschylus laid the scene of his
play not at Argos, but at Mycense. The scene is ' before
the palace of the Atreidse,' and I question whether he

1 JEsch. Agamemnon —

AttoWov, AttoWov, ayviar ' , diroWcov e/xoy.

d 7T0i ttot riyayes fJ.e ; irpos Troiav (rreyqv ;
Observe, Cassandra here says, o-rtyrjv, not irokiv.
2 Aristoph. T/iesm. 4S9.

XEMEA, MYCEX.E, AND T1RYXS. 71

wasted a second thought upou its site. There is not in
all the play the faintest allusion to the scenery of the
Argive plain, or the relative position of its cities. yEschylus
had evidently been a diligent reader or hearer of Homer
— his characters, language, and allusions prove this —
insomuch that a saying was attributed to him, 'that his
dramas were but fragments from the great Homeric
banquet/ He could not, therefore, have been ignorant
that Mycenae was constantly spoken of by Homer as the
city and abode of the Atreidse; and yet throughout the
play there is no mention of Mycenae. Argos occurs
several times in the sense of the country, and Argeioi for
the people. Homer uses ' Argos ' with four different limi-
tations ; first, as the city of Diomed; 1 second, as the king-
dom of Agamemnon; 2 third, as comprising also the kingdom
of Menelaus; 3 and fourth, as a generic name for all Greece. 4
Now, in the days of the Attic dramatists, the term
Argos was by universal usage in common life applied only
to the city ; hence arose doubtless a certain confusion in
the popular mind in regard of the Homeric 'Argos/ and
a disposition to credit the city with all that had been
attributed to Argos in the wider meanings. And no
doubt the citizens of Argos, as they transported the
people of Mycenae and incorporated them with their own
body, were anxious also to appropriate their ancient
legends and heroic fame. The Agamemnon was repre-
sented ten years after this final destruction of the ancient
capital of the Atreidse. The fact that the poet does not

1 Iliad, ii. 559. 2 lb. i. 30. 3 Odyss. xv. 80.

4 Iliad, ix. 246.

72 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

mention the city, seems to indicate that its fate excited
little notice or sympathy in contemporary Greece.

If the Argive topography of xEschylus is thus indefinite
and negative, that of Sophocles is elaborately wrong. In
the opening scene of the Electra, the ' Psedagogue/
addressing Orestes, says : ' Here is the ancient Argos you
were longing for, and this the Lycean agora of the wolf-
slaying god ' (to wit, the market-place of the town of
Argos) ; ' and this on the left is the renowned temple of
Hera, and, at the place we are come to, believe that you
have before your eyes Mycense, rich in gold, and here the
blood-stained house of the Pelopidse.' No one reading
this description would infer that Argos was between five
and six miles distant, and the Herseum nearly two. The
truth was that neither Sophocles nor his f Psedagogue '
thought of administering a lecture on topography under
the guise of a dramatic entertainment — as Milton or Ben
Jonson might have done; so far from it, he held the
entertainment to be all in all, and made topography and
everything else give way to it. He wanted to produce an
effect by bringing Argos, My cense, and the Herseum within
the compass of a single coup d'oeil, and I warrant that
not one of the spectators was pedantic enough to quarrel
with him for it. He would not have taken similar liberties
with the neighbourhood of Athens — on the contrary, in
the (Edipus at Colonus he is rigorously exact, because
the audience were too familiar with the scene not to be
shocked at any departure from fact j and in that case the
most powerful effect was to be obtained by adhering to it.
I remember to have read a play of M. Victor Hugo's,
called, I think, Marie Tudor, where the scene opens with
the following stage direction : ( Palais de Richmond :

NEMEA, UYCESM, AND TIRYNS. 73

dans le fond k gauche l'Eglise de Westminster, k droite la
Tour de Londres.' Not one of the audience would be
shocked by this impossible compression, and therefore the
poet was quite justified in annihilating space to make a
thousand people happy. If either play would have gained
a tittle by the change, M. Victor Hugo would not have
hesitated a moment to make the Abbey and the Tower
change places, nor Sophocles to transfer the Temple of
Hera from the left hand to the right. But France is the
only country which in these days has a living drama, and
whose poetry is not cramped by pedantry.

To resume the description of Pausanias : ' In the ruins
of Mycense there is a fountain called Perseia, and under-
ground buildings of Atreus and his children, where they
kept their treasures/ He goes on to say that there were
also tombs of Agamemnon and his murdered companions,
Clytemnestra and /Egisthus being buried at some little
distance from the wall, not inside, like the others. There
remain now no fountain 1 and no tombs ; but the well-known
' Treasury of Atreus' lies on the southern side of the ridge,
and there are traces of at least three similar but smaller
buildings on the other side. All these are outside the
wall, whereas from the description of Pausanias one would
have inferred that they were within it. If they were
treasuries, it seems incredible that they should not have
been within the wall. The hypothesis of an outer wall
creates a new difficulty. It is obvious that Pausanias means
by { the peribolus,' the extant circuit of the Acropolis.
I infer, too, from a passage in the history of Thucydides,

1 Unless we may identify the Perseia with a spring on the opposite
side of the city, beyond the walls.

74 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

who probably saw the city within fifty years of its capture
by the Argives (468 B.C.), that there were no walls in his
time, except those we now see. ' The fact that Mycense
was a little place, or any other polisma of those days which
now appears insignificant, would afford no certain ground
for disbelieving that the armament [sent to Troy] was as
large as it is stated by the poets and the received tradition '
(b. i. c. 10). If the space on the lower ridge, supposed by
Colonel Leake to have been occupied by the main part of
the city, had been surrounded by walls, the words of the
historian could not have been applicable. The size of the
city would have been by no means so contemptible.
Colonel Leake believed that he had found traces of a wall
along the crest of the ridge. I differ on such a point
with great hesitation from so eminent an authority ; but
neither I nor my companions were able to see anything
else along the ridge but the limestone rock cropping out,
and a few stones which have served in recent times to
separate the tenements of a noAV-deserted hamlet. Sup-
posing that there were a wall along this crest, we should
not get rid of our dilemma. Either the ' Treasury of
Atreus/ or those of ' his children/ would be outside the
wall. In the midst of these perplexities it is hard to
pick one's way to a reasonable hypothesis. On the whole
I incline to the belief that the Avail now remaining was
the wall which bounded the ' little place ' of Thucydides,
the same which Pausanias mentions as the ' peribolus,'
and that no Avail embracing a wider circuit ever existed.
If there be — though I could not see them — any remains,
Cyclopean or Hellenic, on the lower ridge outside, they
are the remains of some detached fort, or other outwork,

XEMEA, MYCEX.E, AND TIRYXS. 73

not part of a city wall. The little community trans-
planted by the Argives in b.c. 468 to Argos — just as the
inhabitants of Alba were transplanted to Rome — consisted
probably of a few hundred families, some living in the
city, some dispersed over the adjacent country, but all
able to find a refuge within its walls in time of danger.

The ' city ' of the heroic ages was as different from the
' city ' of later times, as Kenil worth is from Birmingham,
or Carcassonne from Bordeaux. Thucydides warns his
readers, who were familiar with the busy, crowded,
populous cities of his own time, not hastily to infer that
the force of the ancients was small in proportion to the
remains of their cities. Had he developed his thought
he would have gone on to say that, in the infancy of
commerce and manufacture the population was scattered
over the country, not collected into towns. The city
contained the castle of their liege lord and the houses
of his immediate dependents and the temples of their
patron gods. Hither they went at stated festivals to
worship, to plead for justice, to sell the produce of their
fields. Hither also they fled for refuge, with their flocks
and herds, in time of need. For, small as is the circuit
of the walls, a considerable portion of the space within
was left vacant, and served, no doubt, for the purpose
just mentioned. How do we know r this ? Simply by the
fact that the rock which comes to the surface is as rough
as nature left it, and has never been smoothed so as to
serve for the foundation of a human dwelling. The same
remark will apply to the remains of all the oldest cities in
Greece — Tiryns, Crissa, Orchomenos, &c. Of course it
would have been ill living for a multitude of cows and

76 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

sheep, so cribbed and confined, if the durance had lasted
long; but the ordinary danger was, we may infer, such a
raid or foray as that of Nestor on his neighbours of Elis. 1
Besides Mycenae, there were Tiryns, Larissa, Mideia, the
citadel of Palamedes, the sanctuary of Hera, and perhaps
other similar strongholds available in those days for the
dwellers in the Argive plain, so that Mycenae would amply
suffice for the uses to which a city was then applied.
When we talk about ' the imperial capital of Agamemnon/
we deceive ourselves with the associations derived from
later times. Even if we take the Iliad for veritable history,
the King of Mycenae was only the feudal superior or liege
lord of other chieftains, who ruled their respective fiefs in
Argolis and the adjacent islands, like a Villehardouin or
a De la Roche in the thirteenth century, and elected
to the supreme command over similar potentates for an
especial occasion, as the British elected Cassibelaunus.
We must not compare the monarchy of Agamemnon with
the monarchies of other regions and other times, we must
not expect to find in Mycenae ruins commensurate in
extent with those of Nineveh or Rome, and here, as else-
where in Greece, we must learn not to be surprised that
a famous name which our imagination, deluded by the
genius of ancient poets and the influence of modern asso-
ciations, has bestowed on some great and gorgeous ideal,
belongs in reality to a little nest on a ledge of barren rock.
There remains still a difficulty to be met. How is it
that ' the treasuries ' were outside the walls ? As I have
said before, this difficulty is not solved by adopting Colonel

1 Homer, Iliad, xi. 670, 399.

NEMEA, MYCENAE, AND TIRYNS. 77

Leake's 'ancient wall/ for some of ' the treasuries ' are on
one side and some on the other. Nor is it solved by-
admitting the existence of a wider fortification embracing
them all ; for then we may ask, why were not the
treasuries within the wall of the citadel, in the safest pos-
sible place? Not being there, I hold that they are not
treasuries at all. As this assertion contradicts a theory
which has hitherto commanded, so far as I know, universal
assent, I am bound to justify it by giving my reasons at
length. On what, then, does the common opinion rest?
On the statement of Pausanias, and the acquiescence of
modern travellers. Colonel Leake writes : ' As to their
having been the treasuries of the Atreidse, it was at least a
tradition which had descended to Pausanias in an unbroken
series ; and as there is no reason to doubt that they were
built for the purpose which the Greek name implies, it is
no more than consistent with the history of My cense to
believe that the largest, or that which is nearly complete,
was the treasury of Atreus himself; for Agamemnon
having been much engaged in war, and having passed a
great part of his reign abroad, was much less likely to
have accomplished such a structure/ '

Now, in the first place, how do we know that ' the
tradition had descended to Pausanias in an unbroken
series?' They were the work of a people quite distinct
from the Greeks of historical times, in modes of life, in
polity, art, and civilisation; of a people whose very
memory had been swept away by the Dorian invasion.
They were buildings of a fashion to which Hellenic works

1 Morea, ch. xx.

78 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

afforded no parallel (for ' the circular buildings called
Tholoi, the Philippeium of Olympia, the Odeium of
Sparta/ &c, with which Colonel Leake, in another place,
compares ' the treasuries/ were all above ground) ; and
they had probably been rifled of their contents, whatever
they were, nearly a thousand years before Pausanias's
time. How can we vouch for ' the unbroken series of
tradition/ in the absence of any allusion by an earlier
author ? I believe that the name rests on no tradi-
tion, but solely on the guess of ignorant peasants,
who are always dreaming of buried treasures. And
treasuries at Mycense would of course be called the
treasuries of the Atreidse. As well might we claim
the authority of tradition for their modern name, ' the
ovens.' They are quite as likely to have baked the bread
of those voracious heroes, as to have kept their wealth.
The only building of the kind, so far as we know, about
which ' ancient tradition ' may be appealed to, was the
brazen chamber at Argos. Pausanias says, ' There is a
subterraneous building, and on it was the brazen chamber
which Acrisius once made for the safe keeping of his
daughter, but Perilaus pulled it down when tyrant of
Argos' (ii. 23, 7). The meaning of this probably is that
Perilaus stripped off the brass or bronze which coated the
roof, as in the treasury at Mycense. Now Pausanias
accepts this story about Danae without the slightest
question or doubt ; but in this case the ' ancient tradition'
is too contrary to modern common sense to be received.
It is not unlikely that ' the chambers of the daughters of
Proetus,' which Pausanias mentions as being near Tiryns,
may have been similar places, and the Argive legend may

XEMEA, MYCEN'jE, AND TIRYNS. 79

have had, mutatis mutandis, its counterpart there. If this
be so, the number of these edifices militates against the
hypothesis that they were treasuries. The chambers of
the daughters of Prcetus were evidently undefended by
walls. 1 They were probably on the plain, not very
far from the southern gate. The reason given for
assigning the larger treasury to Atreus and a smaller
one to Agamemnon, reminds one of the wise sage
who cut in his door a large hole for his cat and a small
one for his kitten. If Agamemnon were a poorer or
busier man, why could he not keep his treasures in the
building which had served his father?

But, seriously, if these are not treasuries, what are they?
I answer, tombs. If they were merely store-houses, why
such costly and elaborate ornament ? Men care that their
treasures should be securely, not splendidly lodged. On the
other hand, they spare no cost in the honours paid to the
dead. And if it be a part of their creed that departed spirits
have power over the living for good or for evil, fear conspires
with love and sorrow to do them honour, and to pay them
worship. Thus we find that nations the most diverse in
character, the most widely removed in age and place,
lavish the best gifts they have upon the tombs of their
princes and fathers. The wealthy bestow their most
precious wealth, the skilful their most cunning skill, and
the rude people, that have neither wealth nor skill, bestow
the labour of strong and willing hands. Pyramid and
cromlech, tumulus and cairn, the rock-tombs of Egypt,
Syria, and Etruria, the mausoleums of Halicarnassus and

1 Paus. ii. 25.

80 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

Rome, the gorgeous vaults of St. Denis and the Escorial,
are all evidences of the same feeling which lies deep at
the root of our common humanity. This, I think, suggests
the only true purpose of these costly underground buildings
"without the walls of Mycense. Of the people who built
them we know nothing. Is it not more reasonable to
suppose that they manifested in this, their own fashion, a
feeling which they must have shared with all mankind,
than to attribute to them capricious prodigality in wasting
decoration upon a building of no sanctity, where it could
not be seen, and gross imprudence in storing their wealth
where it could not be defended ?

One word more on a point of detail. I do not think
that the triangular space above the door was intended for
a window. If it were, it would have singularly facilitated
the entrance of a thief into ' the treasury.' It was probably
filled with two parallel stones with sculptures in relief, like
those over the Gate of Lions. In the British Museum there
are some fragments of sculpture which once decorated the
doorposts of the c treasury.' The material is a red por-
phyritic stone ; the pattern an arabesque of the simplest
kind, in low relief, and of rude workmanship, more like
the ornaments on a Byzantine or Lombard church than
anything one finds in a Greek temple. The Greeks,
moreover, in their best days, never employed coloured
marbles, although they were to be had for the hewing
almost at the gates of Athens and Sparta. Hymettus
furnished to the Romans much-prized rafters (trabes
Hymettiee) with pale blue veins, and Taygetus blocks of
serpentine. Hellenic architecture has no resemblance to,
and cannot be a development of, that of ancient Mycense.

NEMEAj MYCEX.E, AND TIRYNS. 81

This complete disruption of tradition seems to indicate a
greater divergence in race, a more complete conquest and
extermination, than the legends about the successive
domination of Perseidae, Pelopidse, and Heracleidse would
lead us to infer. Those who inhabited Mycenae in historic
times were probably in no way lineally descended from
those who built the walls and subterranean chambers of
their city, and had only the right of cuckoos to their nest.

' Fifteen stades distant from Mycenee, on the left hand,
is the Herseum/ So Pausanias. A stade being two
hundred and two yards, the distance is four hundred and
ninety yards short of two miles. It is even less from the
village of Kharvata ; but so rough and stony is the track,
that we were fifty minutes in riding to the spot. The
site of the Heraeum, which had been sought for in vain
by Colonel Leake, was found by General Gordon when
looking for quails. The colonel did not beat quite high
enough upon the hill-side, being misled by Strabo, who
gives the distance from My cense to Argos as fifty stades,
the distance from Myceuge to the Hereeum ten, that from
the Hereeum to Argos forty, and naturally inferring that
the temple could not be so far from the direct road
between the two cities. Herodotus says (b. i. c. 31) that
the Herseum was forty-five stades from Argos. Herodotus
and Pausanias are right in each statement, Strabo wrong
in both. In all questions of topography the two former
are to be trusted much more implicitly than the latter,
who was a compiler, not an observer.

Pausanias proceeds : ' Along the road from My cense
runs a water called Eleutherion, and the women who are
appointed to the secret ministrations about the temple and

82 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

at the sacrifices use it for purifications. The temple
itself is in the lower part of what is called Eubcea. For
they give this mountain the name of Eubcea, saying that
the river Asterion had three daughters, Euboea, Prosymna,
and Acraia, and they were Hera's nurses. And from
Acraia they call the mountain which faces the temple,
from Euboea all that lies about the temple, and Prosymna
the tract below the Heneum. The said Asterion, flowing
below the Herseum, falls into a chasm and disappears. ;

I could not identify Eleutherion. The streams run not
along, but across the road, and must in their general
direction always have been the same. The Asterion was
doubtless the stream which has cloven a deep gully for
itself, and which we cross immediately before arriving at
the temple. I looked in vain, however, for the chasm.

What Pausanias says about the three daughters of
Asterion is an illustration of the way in which he, in
common with many Greek writers, overlooked the most
obvious etymologies. Acraia clearly means the top part
of the mountain, and Eubcea the middle, adapted to pasture
grounds. What Prosymna may be is not so clear.
Asterion must keep his youngest daughter for the present.

All the district comprehended under these three names
was probably destined for the support of the temple and
its ministers. On the hill at Argos, full in view of this
mountain, was a temple of Hera Acraia. Both Hera and
Zeus were supposed to have an especial favour for high
places. There was on the Aero-Corinth a temple of Hera
Bounaia; a title, as I need hardly say, derived from
fiovvog, ' hill/ not from ' Bounos, son of Hermes/ as
Pausanias hath it. I find, from another passage in the

XEMEA, MYCEX.E, AND TIRYXS. 83

same writer (ii. 37, 2), that Prosymna was one of the titles
under which Demeter was worshipped by the Argives. I
conclude, therefore, that it was some provincial name for
1 arable land/ as the lowest part of the mountain is. There
is perhaps no trade or art, besides agriculture, which so
abounds in local and provincial terms not generally under-
stood. Farmers and labourers travel less out of their own
neighbourhood and their own class than any other people.

Now that the site of the Herseurn has been discovered,
one is surprised that it should have remained so long un-
known. The masonry is on such a scale that I discerned
it with the naked eye from Argos. The position has been
selected not merely as being conspicuous, but as being
secure also. The ancient Heraeum was a fortress as well as
a temple. The position combining natural strength with a
copious water-supply so far resembles that of Mycenae, but
differs from it inasmuch as it stands out on a projecting
spur, instead of nestling in a recess of the mountain chain.
The declivity, which is almost precipitous on the south
side, slopes on the other sufficiently to be formed by art
into a series of terraces, each supported by masonry.
Some of this masonry is of the most regular Hellenic
kind ; in another part every third course consists of
smaller stones.

Recent excavations — still in progress when we were
there — have laid bare part of the foundations of the
temple, so as to leave no doubt as to its exact site, but
bringing nothing to light by which the dimensions could
be estimated with anything like certainty. The complete
disappearance of the building at so great a distance from
any town, seems to prove that its materials were con-

g 2

84 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

vertible into lime. If it bad been built of marble, Pau-
sanias would probably have said so ; moreover, in another
place (viii. 41) he says that no temple in the Peloponnese,
except that of Tegea, surpassed in beauty of material that
at Bassse, which we know from its remains to have been
built of limestone. The Hereeum was therefore, in all
probability, of limestone too, always excepting the decora-
tive sculpture in the frieze and pediments. Immediately
in front were a flight of steps, and perhaps propylsea,
fronting the road to Argos, and from which a path to the
right led to a lower terrace, intended probably for the
abode of the servants of the temple. After describing
the various statues which filled the pediments, or stood
before the entrance in the pronaos and in the temple
itself, Pausanias says : ' Above this temple are the founda-
tions of the former temple, and whatever else the fire had
left. It was burnt down by the lamp setting fire to the
garland ; Chryseis, the priestess of Hera (whose duty it
was to watch), having been overpowered with sleep.
Chryseis fled to Tegea and took refuge iu the sanctuary
of Athena Alea; and the Argives, notwithstanding the
magnitude of the calamity, did not pull down the statue
of Chiyseis, but it stands to this very day in front of the
burnt temple/ 1

Immediately above the site of the temple just described
is a polygonal wall supporting the highest terrace of all ;
on which, no doubt, the more ancient temple stood, though
not a vestige now remains. Some religious scruple seems

Paus. ii. 17, 7. Thucydides (iv. 133) mentions Phlius as the
place where Chiyseis took refuge.

NEMEA, MYCEX.E, AND TIRYNS. 85

to have prevented the Argives from meddling with the
relics of the first temple. It was originally built on the
lonely hill- side, perhaps as a common holy place for all
the inhabitants of the Argive plain, and a peculiar sanctity
attached to it on account of its immemorial antiquity.
The Argives, and probably the other communities, so long
as they retained their independence, dated the public acts
according to the year of the Priestess of Hera. Thucy-
dides, evidently expecting that his work would be known
and read in the Peloponnese, gives the date of the com-
mencement of the war, according to the Argive calendar,
1 when Chryseis was in the forty-eighth year of her priest-
hood/ l The accident to the old temple occurred eight
years and a half afterwards. 2 Another priestess, whose
name Thucydides carefully records, was appointed instead
of the aged and somnolent Chryseis.

The excavations undertaken by the government had
been much talked of, and their results vaunted even in
the English papers. We were very much disappointed
with what we saw collected at Argos. Some shelves in
a little room contained the whole — a few small fragments.
There was one beautiful female head with the hair in a
band and gathered in a knot behind, and also some feet and
hands of marble. There was a fragment of a frieze with
the honeysuckle ornament painted pale yellow on a black
ground, with red in the centre. There was also a lion's
head with open mouth, which must have been a gurgoyle,
and a piece of moulding of which the ornament repre-
sented a buckle and tongue. I do not know the archi-

1 Thuc. b. ii. 2. 2 lb. b. iv. 133.

86 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

tectural name. There was also a fragment of inscription
in apparently ancient letters, POSAYAA EIIOIKI, which
I give here for the benefit of those persons to whom an
inscription is interesting in inverse proportion to its com-
pleteness.

A ride of somewhat more than an hour over a com-
paratively smooth road brings us to the walled (or rather
wally) ' Tiryns/ 1 No one can doubt the especial propriety
of the epithet in this case. As the walls were in Homer's
time, as they were in Pausanias's time, so they remain
substantially now, and seem destined to last as long as
time itself — ' A work of Cyclopes, made of unhewn stones,
each stone of such magnitude that the smallest of them
could not be so much as stirred by a yoke of mules.
Small stones have been fitted in at some remote time, so
that each serves as nearly as may be to join the large
ones/ 2

The hill on which Tiryns stands, and which it com-
pletely occupies, is an isolated eminence — a natural
tumulus in the plain, from twenty to fifty feet high,
about three hundred yards long by one hundred broad.
The southern and higher half is separated from the
northern by a wall. The communication was through a
long passage to the west, with doorway, in the lintel of
which a huge hole for a bolt still remains. This wall
and doorway was probably what passed for the House of
Prcetus. The northern part had two entrances ; a postern
with two stones meeting in an acute angle at top, and on the

Homer, II. ii. 559 — Tipvvdd re Teixiofcraav.
2 Paus. ii. 25, 7.

NEMEAj MYCEN.ffi, AND TIRYNS. 87

opposite side a gate with an inclined plane outside, so as to
expose the right or unshielded side of an assailant. There
was also a separate entrance by a still wider gate to the
southern part. The walls to right and left were pierced by
galleries, the purpose of which is not obvious, owing to the
ruined state of the great gateway. The walls are in places
twenty -four feet thick, and Colonel Leake found the dimen-
sions of one stone to be ten feet six inches by three feet
nine inches by three feet six inches. To his precise and
elaborate description I beg to refer those who feel sufficient
interest in the subject. There is only one point in it
which our observation could not verify. In the eastern
wall by the southern gate we could only find one passage.
As at Mycenae, there is not a vestige of any wall out-
side; and I do not believe that any such ever existed.
The name Licymna was probably given to the southern
portion on the upper level, the strongest part, and capable
of separate defence, the citadel proper of Tiryns.

The remark of Colonel Leake that, 'after the return of
the Heracleidae, Mycenae, Tiryns, &c, were reduced to the
condition of dependent towns or castles/ appears to me
not to be borne out by such fragments of their history as
we can refer to. That Mycenae and Tiryns sent four
hundred men as a contingent to the force of Leonidas
when Argos stood aloof, shows that at that time they
were actually, as well as nominally, independent. It
would be the natural policy of Sparta to support these
weaker communities against the threatening power of
their neighbours, and they in return sympathized with
their foreign patron, exactly as Scotland clung to France
as the natural enemy of her own too preponderant

88 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

neighbour and kinswoman England. It was not probably
jealousy of the glory these little states had acquired by
their share in the Persian war, but the obvious promptings
of self-interest which moved the Argives twelve years
afterwards to transplant the inhabitants. They had,
doubtless, long been waiting for a fair opportunity.

It may be worth while to notice a slight discrepancy
in Pausanias's account of Tiryns. In one place (ii. 16, 2)
he says that indications of Prcetus's dwelling are still left
in Tiryns; in another place (ii. 25, 7), that only the wall
of the city remains. The legend that Prcetus had pos-
session of the Herseum implies that, till the time of their
suppression, the Tirynthians had, or claimed, a kind of
precedence in the administration or the worship of that
temple.

Close to Tiryns, about the place where I suppose
the chambers of Prcetus's daughters to have been, is a
house with outbuildings and pleasant garden of orange
and lemon-trees, looking, however, somewhat forlorn and
neglected. This is an agricultural college founded by
Capo d'Istrias; but, like constitutional government and
other exotics imported from Western Europe, it has not
thriven. It ought to thrive here if anywhere, for the
plain is one of the most fertile in Greece.

We reached Argos, riding along a smooth road {apt um
equis) between fields of cotton and tobacco, and crossing
the dry beds of two streams, the Inachus and Charadrus,
in an hour and a quarter. In other parts of the plain
towards the sea are rice-grounds. Now, cotton and rice
will only grow in very moist soils. How do we account
for this moist and even marshy plain having the epithet

NEMEA, MYCEX.E, AND TIRYXS. 89

of polydipsion, ' thirsty V From this fact, that, the soil
being mostly sand and gravel, the water, so long as there
is any fall, percolates through. Thus while the flat
ground, lying scarcely above the sea-level, is saturated
with moisture, all the upper slopes, constituting by far the
greater part of the so-called plain of Argos, are dry. The
lower plain may be called ' thirsty ' for the opposite reason,
not because it wants, but because it gets so much to drink.
At Argos we were lodged in a clean and comfortable
house, which contrasted agreeably with the hovel we had
left at Kharvata.

CHAPTER V.

ARGOS, AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD.

rPHE town of Argos presented a busy scene on the
-*- morning of Saturday, the 19th of April. It was a
rnarket-day, and the streets were crowded with wares and
vendors. Country people had brought in baskets filled
with onions, leeks, chicory, water-cresses, and other
Lenten fare; and the townspeople tempted them in return
with a display of wearing-apparel, from fez-cap to slipper,
with calicoes (probably) from Manchester, knives (possibly)
from Sheffield, and white umbrellas, at two drachmas
a-piece, also warranted Euglish manufacture. The town
is to all appearance the most genuinely prosperous of any
town in Greece. The houses are all built in a rough-and-
ready fashion, with neither dressed stones, nor rough-cast,
nor stucco — for use and not for show. One might sup-
pose, too, that the settlers had been so busy building
roofs for their heads that they had had no time to provide
the luxuries of paving and draining. And this is about
the truth. The ancient name of Argos is usurped by an
upstart younger than many a Brownville or Smithville in
the United States. "We reached at length a large open
space, which our exegetes, in default of ancient legend,
made the scene of a modem cock-and-bull story. Here, he
said, the French, when they occupied Argos, massacred I

AllGOS, AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. 91

know not how many children as they were coming from
school. This is not the only instance which has led me
to conclude that the modern Greeks are at least as
< daring in history ' as their brave ancestors. In this
space are some Roman ruins incapable of identification-
being perhaps remains of buildings subsequent to the
time of Pausanias-and not far off the only important
relic of ancient Argos, the rock-hewn seats which formed
the centre of the theatre. < Its two ends were formed of
large masses of rude stones and mortar, faced with regular
masonry : these are now mere shapeless heaps of rubbish.
The excavated part of the theatre preserves the remains
of sixty-seven rows of seats, in three divisions, separated
by diazomata: in the upper division are nineteen rows, in
the middle sixteen, and in the lower thirty-two, and
there may perhaps be some more at the bottom concealed

under the earth."

I counted thirty-five seats in the lowest division,
sixteen in the middle, and eighteen in the uppermost,
making sixty-nine in all. The < rectilinear rows of seats
excavated in the rock contiguous to the theatre > are now
covered up and ploughed over. I observed afterwards,
close to the theatre at Chseronea, seats similar to those
which Colonel Leake saw here. I doubt whether they
formed a sort of lesche for loungers in the intervals of
the entertainment, like the foyer of a modern theatre, or
whether they were anything more than steps facilitating
access to and egress from the upper tiers.

A steep and stony path leads from hence to the

1 Leake, vol. ii. p. 39^-

92 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

summit crowned by the great castle of Argos ; a strong-
hold, which, after being jealously guarded by all the
tyrants of the land, from Acrisius downwards, has since
the restoration of freedom been abandoned to solitude
and decay.

You enter by a small court built in rude courses
of alternate brick and stone, as I suppose, of Byzantine
structure; and through this you pass into the main court,
an irregular polygon, defended at each angle with towers.
The wall is of immense thickness. There is a broad
path all round along the battlements, accessible by flights
of steps at intervals. It contains, among other ruins, a
small church with an apse. This court is obviously of
post-Byzantine construction, for I observed marble crosses
in low relief, and other ornaments which had belonged to
a Greek church, built into the walls. It is no doubt the
work of the Frank lords of the Morea. The two courts
occupy the summit of the hill, and are surrounded on
three sides by a larger enclosure, on a level, considerably
lower, also defended by a strong wall, with towers at
intervals. The towers are for the most part square. I
observed, however, three round towers, and one of a
trapezium shape. In the outer court are several cisterns.
In the walls, on the north and north-west sides, I saw
considerable masses of Cyclopean masonry of the second
order, and Colonel Leake saw some of the first order also.
Hellenic work appears at intervals; and in one place I
noticed — where a large mass has been overturned and up-
rooted by gunpowder — the alternate layers of flat bricks
and cement showed the handiwork of the Roman
legionary. The present structure, mainly Frank, but

ARGOS, AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. 93

partly Byzantine, has been kept in repair by Venetians
and Turks. Few places have had so continuous a history
so legibly written in their walls. They comprise within
their circuit a space much larger than do the walls of
Tiryns, and scarcely less than those of Mycense. They
are probably coincident in the main with the limits of the
ancient city of heroic times, having, like Tiryns, its
citadel on the higher platform, where the inner court or
keep of the present fortress now stands. But its fortunes
have been different. While Tiryns and Mycense never
developed beyond their ancient limits, and have continued
desert since they were dismantled, nearly two thousand
years ago, the Larissa of Argos has been in constant
occupation. The ptoliethron of the Achaean monarchs
became the Acropolis of a Hellenic city, a fortress under
the Roman and Byzantine empires, and, in the Middle
Ages, as ' the whirligig of Time wrought his revenges/ it
became a feudal castle of Frank lords ; thus reverting to
a purpose singularly resembling that for which ' the
Cyclopes ' built it. \Yhen the French invaded the
Morea, in 1205, it was in possession of Leon Sguros, a
Greek, who held Nauplia and Corinth also, in the name
of the emperor. In the absence of its lord, who was
shut up in Aero-Corinth, the town was taken at the first
assault by Guilliame de Champlitte, ' pour ce que il
estoit en plain/ says the French Chronicle (p. 37) ; but
the castle was not taken till 1248, when it was given by
Yillehardouin to his ally Guillaume de la Roche, lord of
Athens, ' together with the fair castle of Naples/ i. e.
Nauplia. In the following century it came into the
possession of the family of Enghien. Speedily on the

94 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

final expulsion of the French, followed the extinction of
the Greek rule; and since that time the fortress has been,
like all others, held alternately by Venetians and Turks
— masters not equally oppressive, but equally detested,
because there are no degrees in the hatred wherewith a
Greek hates his masters.

Now that freedom and security have again permitted
the free development of natural advantages, a new Argos
is rising on the ancient site at the base. The natural
advantages which Argos possesses are obvious. Its
position is more commodious than the secluded Mycense,
more healthy than the low-lying Tiryns; and it commands
a more abundant supply of water, by springs and aque-
ducts, than either. Their Cephissus, which Poseidon
smote in his wrath, was still supposed to run underground
and feed the wells of the city. Its military advan-
tages are no less apparent. It stood at the junction,
or, so to speak, the ganglion of the various roads to
Laconia and Arcadia ; where, in the historic times of
Argos, dwelt her most formidable foes and most efficient
allies. Laconian invasion was what they had most to
fear, and no other position could so well command and
protect their plain. 1 With these, doubtless, conspired
other causes more subtle and more complex. The springs
of national prosperity lie deep. We see some nations
flourishing with all kinds of natural obstacles, others

When the better days of Sparta were over, Argos became most
formidable as an aggressive post, a point d'appui for an invading
army. Cleomenes regarded its occupation as of the utmost im-
portance — <po^r]6f\s fJ-T] rov Apyovs of ttoXc/jioi Kparrja-avres, Ka\ tus
7rap6&ovs aTTOKkeiaavTfs, avro\ irop6<i>(Tiv dSews ttjv AaicooviKrjv, k.t.A. —
Plutarch. Cleomenes, c. 21.

ARGOS, AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. 95

decaying in spite of manifold natural advantages. Again,
the spirit and vigour of a people fail and die without any
change in external circumstances adequate to explain the
fact. We use a trite simile, but allege no reason, when
we compare the life of a nation to the life of a man, or
when we talk about the ebb and flow of the tide of a
nation's prosperity.

The view from the walls of the Larissa is magnificent.
At our feet on the slope lies the town, with its fringe of
gardens and green fruit-trees, with here and there a black
spire of cypress, and sweeping round in a bold curve from
the left the white broad bed of the Charadrus. Early as
the season was, not a drop of water was apparent; it had
all trickled through the sand and gravel, drunk up, in
fact, by the thirsty soil of Argos. Beyond, stretches the
level plain, faintly green with young crops of cotton and
tobacco ; a marsh towards the right, and then a curved
line of beach, ending at the town and harbour of Nau-
plia, over which rises the castle-crowned crag of Pala-
medes. The Argive plain is bounded, on all but the
seaward side, with an amphitheatre of jagged precipitous
mountain ranges. Further away to the east is the peak
of Arachne ; to the north, the fantastic shape of Fouka ;
Cyllene soaring to the north-west ; and between them,
the distant snows of Parnassus.

In the afternoon we drove to Nauplia ; and were no
sooner there than, glad to escape from its filthy streets
and filthier inn, we got a boat to cross the bay. While
inside the harbour, every dip of the oar stirred up foul
mud, and raised a more than Thamesian stench. One
cannot wonder that Nauplia was peculiarly liable to the

96 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

plague while as yet there was plague. The reason of its
disappearance I take to be this : —

Plague was a generic name, applied by the ignorant
and undiscriminating Franks of the Middle Ages, and
Orientals of all ages, to a variety of epidemic diseases,
each of which has now, thanks to the Hakims of the
west, got its appropriate name. The scourge is not
removed, only the sufferers have learned to distinguish
the separate lashes of which it is composed. But this
by the way.

I observed that, as we sailed across the bay, the castle
of Argos presented the appearance of a regular oblong
quadrangle ; so that, unless it was very different in old
times, it cannot have been from its shape that it acquired
the name by which it is known in Plutarch — aspis, * a
round shield/ Fragments of ancient wall, still extant,
both in the external and internal courts, indicate that its
former extent was coextensive with the present, and its
shape probably identical. If so, the origin of ' aspis ' must
be sought elsewhere ; perhaps in a piece of local slang
immemorial at Argos ; in which case it may be sought,
but will assuredly never be found. If it were not almost
absurd even to guess at such a riddle, I would suggest
that it is a popular contraction of v £<ra> ttoXiq.

In an hour and twenty minutes, partly rowing and
partly sailing, remis veils, with the aid of a feeble fickle
breeze, we reached Myli, ' the Mills/ where a landing-
place, with a few poor houses about it, marks the site of
the ancient Lerna. Along the sea-shore is a strip of firm
gravel ; but between this and the foot of the hills, quaking
paths and ditches brimful of stagnant water, remind us

ARGOS, AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. 97

that we are crossing the Lernsean marsh. At the edge
of terra firma a copious source gushes from under con-
glomerate rock, and close by is a still, deep pool. These
features of nature remain unchanged, while the groves,
temples, and statues which abounded hereabouts have
left not a wreck behind. The traveller who visited this
spot seventeen hundred years ago writes : 1 — ' I saw a
fountain, called that of Amphiaraus, and the Alcyonian
lake, through which the Argives say Dionysus went
to Hades to bring up Semele. And there is no end to
the depth of this lake ; and no man that I know of has
ever been able by any device to reach the bottom, for
even Nero, though he had ropes made of many stades in
length, and tied them together and hung lead to the end
of them and whatever else was useful for the attempt,
even he could not find any limit to the depth/ As, in
default of other apparatus for comparing the profundity
of the Alcyonian pool with that of Pausanias's credulity,
we were throwing pebbles into it, a peasant digging in a
garden close by, who informed us that he was also a
priest, came up and volunteered the statement that the
pool had no bottom, for that once a man sounded it with
a line of seventy-seven fathoms, and found none. There
can be no doubt, at all events, of the identity of the
lake. Pausanias goes on : —

1 Here is another thing I heard. The water of the
lake to look at is calm and still; but, although it presents
this appearance, its nature is such that it draws down
any one who ventures to swim across, and takes and

1 Paus. ii. 37, 5.
H

98 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

carries them away to the abyss. The circumference of
the lake is not great, about a third of a stade' — i. e. sixty-
seven yards, and I should guess much the same even
now — ' and about its edges grow grass and reeds / to
which I would add, yellow iris and wild celery. In a
ditch close by I saw two large water snakes — Lernsean
hydras — marked yellow and black. The creatures abound
here still. Pausanias takes occasion to remark that, in
his opinion, the hydra which Hercules killed here only
differed from other hydras in size and venornousness, not
in the number of its heads. f There was one Peisandros,
of Kamira, who wrote a poem on the subject, and, like a
lying Rhodian as he was, stuck all those heads on the
hydra to make the beast more terrible, and to increase
the dignity of his own poetry/ It was this same Peisan-
dros who, disdaining the old story about Hercules killing
the Stymphalian birds, to make his hero more terrible,
represented him as frightening them away with a rattle.
Sic itur ad astra.

Here our horses met us. Hiding to the westward,
along the right bank of a dry river-bed, the ancient
Cheimarrhos — ' a river not falsely named/ as iEschylus
says — then crossing it, and striking up the opposite hill,
we came at length to the so-called 'Pyramid/ the object of
which is a matter of dispute. Pausanias, whose brevity
is sometimes as unseasonable and provoking as his pro-
lixity at other times, here leaves us in the dark. All
that he says with any possible reference to ' the Pyramid/
is, that c on the right of the road to Tegea, and above it,
was a polyandria, in honour of the Argives, who defeated
the Lacedaemonians near Hysise, in the time of the

ARGOS, AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. 99

Athenian Pisistratus/ These polyandriae, or joint monu-
ments, were common in Greece. That of the Athenians,
at Marathon, was a tumulus surmounted by stelae, or
pillars, inscribed with the names of the dead ; that of
the Lacedaemonians, at Thermopylae, was the same ; that
of the Boeotians, at Chaeronea, was a tumulus surmounted
by a lion. In all cases, a tumulus appears to form an
essential part of the monument.

In this case c the Pyramid ' is built upon an eminence
which seems at first sight to be artificial, but on closer
inspection proves to be natural, for the native rock comes
to the surface here and there. It may be that, nature
having furnished the tumulus, the paucity of earth and
the abundance of stones on this bleak hill-side suggested
a building instead of a barrow. The building is quadran-
gular, and is entered through a narrow passage formed by
the overlapping of one of the walls, as in the examples
already noticed at Mycenae and Tiryns. The exterior
walls, at the height of some three feet from the ground,
begin to slope inwards, making an angle of perhaps thirty
degrees with the vertical. The interior walls do not slope.
The inside is nearly a square of about twenty-three feet,
and the outer walls are at the basement between nine and
ten feet thick. As the inner face of the wall does not
slope, it is clear that the building is not properly called a
pyramid ; the wall must have terminated in a ridge of
coping stones, at the height of some twelve or fourteen
feet from the ground. There is a doorway, of which the
top is formed by stones overhanging till they meet at the
apex, like the postern at Tiryns. Another example occurs
in the Cyclopean walls of Tusculum.

h 2

100 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

The style of the whole fabric is polygonal, and, what is
very unusual in ancient Greek building of any style, the
stones are joined with mortar, which, I am convinced, must
have formed part of the original edifice, and is not to be
attributed, as Colonel Leake suggests, to subsequent
reparations. Now the question is, for what purpose did
this building serve ? Clearly not for a fortress, for the
sloping wall outside, which one can climb up, would faci-
litate the attack of an enemy, and the straight wall inside,
which one cannot see over, would prevent its being de-
fended. I incline, then, to the belief that it is the
Polyandria. As the building was not by any means a
pyramid, and as there were probably many similar build-
ings then extant in Greece, Pausanias did not think of
making any remark on its form. The objection that the
style is too early for the assigned date rests merely on
hypothesis. We do not know when polygonal building
finally ceased. Probably it continued to be employed in
some cases long after the regular Hellenic was in general
use ; for instance, where the requisite tools, skill, aud
time were wanting.

This is just the sort of building which one might con-
ceive the survivors of an army to erect for their comrades.
The elevation given by Colonel Leake represents the
stones as much smaller than they really are; nor is the
basement by any means so regular as in the picture.
There are some remains of an Hellenic building not
far off, and other traces of ancient habitation, from
which we infer that the Kenchreia of Pausanias stood
here.

The road by which we return to Argos passes another

ARGOS, AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD.

101

place called ' Myli/ or the Mills, a common name in
Greece. The mills in question are turned by the sources
of the Erasinus, which issue from the foot of a precipitous
hill. This ' son of the rock ' is full grown at his very
birth, like Athene, and gushes out an abundant river of
crystal water. In the face of the cliff above is a large
cavern, one branch of which is walled off and made into
a church ; the others wind far into the heart of the hill.
About the mills grow willows, poplars, mulberries, and
other f tame trees/ Here the Argives used to hold a
festival, which they called Turbe, 1 in honour of Dionysus
and Pan. It is so beautiful and, what is more to the
purpose, so pleasant a spot, that, if it had been near Athens,
it would have been made familiar to us in many an im-
mortal song. No doubt its praises were hymned in not
a few Argive dithyrambs. I suppose that no river of the
same bulk has so short a course as the Erasinus, — some-
thing more than a mile. The ancients imagined it to be
identical with the river which disappears at Stymphalus y
a notion which, strange to say, has found favour even in
modern times. Colonel Mure believes that the fact had

1 rvpfiri, perhaps connected with Oopvfios.
z Herodotus, vi. 76 — ' Cleomenes had been told by the Delphic
oracle that he should take Argos. So, when he came with an army
of Spartans to the river Erasinus, which is said to flow from the
Stymphalian lake, — for this lake, they say, falling into a dark chasm,
reappears in Argos, and for the rest of its course this water is called
by the Argives Erasinus, — be that as it may (S'&j'), when Cleomenes
came to this river, he sacrificed to him, and as the omens were not fa-
vourable to his crossing, he said that he admired Erasinus for not de-
serting his countrymen, but the Argives should not come off scot-free
for all that.'

102 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

been ascertained by actual experiment, by throwing some-
thing in at Stymphalus and seeing it re-appear at f the
Mills.' There is not the slightest evidence that such an
experiment was ever made ; it would require an amount
of pains, patience, and concert such as the old Greeks
were not in the habit of devoting to the examination of
natural phenomena. Besides, even if there were a con-
nexion between the rivers, it is not likely that such an
experiment would ascertain it. Whatever was thrown in,
would be almost certain never to come out. Floating
substances would be arrested, and colouring matter filtered,
on the way. The story of Alphseus and Arethusa, and a
thousand similar absurdities, prove that the Greeks would
believe anything about the waters under the firmament.
No considerations as to distance, direction, difference of
level, stood in the way of a legend. To them a river was
a god and a fountain a nymph, — persons as well as
things, — and the two ideas were confounded inseparably
in the popular mind. Though water could not run up-
hill, a god or nymph might. In this particular case, the
facts apparent would have led a much less credulous
people to the inference drawn. A copious river disap-
pears at Stymphalus ; a river equally copious re-appears
near Argos. What more obvious than to put this and
that together? Now that we know something of the
constitution of the earth's crust, it seems strange that
such a theory should still be advocated. Considering that
between the two places lie many ranges of lofty hills,
with strata upturned and disrupted in all complexity of
disorder — a disorder which, from the nature of the case,
must prevail below the ground as well as above, the

ARGOS, AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. 103

chances are infinite against a stream of water continuing
in the same channel so far.

Probably the waters of the Stymphalian river, severed
into a thousand runlets, feed the sources of the Asopus
and Nemea, and find their way to the Gulf of Corinth,
while the Erasmus is a main drain of nature's contrivance
for carrying the waters of Artemisium to the Gulf of

Argos.

It was growing dark as we remounted. By the road-
side runs a copious stream, diverted from the Erasmus to
irrigate the Argive fields and gardens. A multitude of
frogs assailed us with a pertinacious chorus, in notes much
louder and harsher than the notes of the frogs of England.
They begin with an inarticulate preparatory sound, like an
old Dutch clock groaning in the effort to strike, and end
with a succession of spluttering ' quacks/ The frog Ian-
guage cannot be better rendered into articulate speech
than by the Brekekekex koax koax of Aristophanes. Our
men threw stones at them to stop their clamour with very
little success. When Dionysus in the play says, ' Ah, I
thought I should stop your koax at last/ I fancy that he
does it by hitting the chorus severally on the head with
his oar. They were most likely arranged in a row at the
back of the stage, with their heads just appearing above
the floor, along which floor (a lake for the nonce) Dionysus
is rowing his boat by the aid of the « machine man » un-
derneath. It is a pity that no stage directions have come
down to us with the ancient drama.

Hrjxavonoios. Aristoph. Pax. 174.

CHAPTER VI.

A GREEK CHURCH.

rPHE next day was Palm- Sunday, according to the
-*- orthodox calendar. Instead of palms they used laurels
to decorate the churches and the doorposts of their
houses. Like the eiresionse of old, the withered houghs
are suffered to remain till the recurrence of another fes-
tival. The children carried houghs in their hands — the
men had sprigs in their button-holes. "We went to early
service at the cathedral — for there is a bishop here 1 — a
plain but spacious edifice. The back seats on the ground-
floor were occupied by the married women ; the unmarried
sat in a gallery with lattice-work before it, as if their
presence at church was like the presence of ladies in the
House of Commons, not allowed, but winked at. The
best part of the church was filled by the men. As soon as
we appeared, the crowd made May for us with great
politeness, and we were ushered — to speak truly, I ought

1 In the list of modern Greek sees given by Mr. Neale {History of
the Eastern Church, Introduction, p. 95), Argos is omitted. Per-
haps the bishopric is of quite recent creation. It was once a metro-
politan see ; but after Evrenos the Ottoman, in the time of Bajazet I.,
in the year 1397, had stormed the place and carried all its inhabitants
off to be sold as slaves, Nauplia was made metropolis in its stead. —
Neale, 1. c. ; Finlay, Mediaeval G-reece, p. 275.

A GREEK CHURCH. 105

to say shoved — into very conspicuous places. I observed
then, and frequently afterwards, that a Greek congrega-
tion indulges its love of novelty quite openly, making
great eyes of wonder at a stranger, continuing all the
while to intone their part of the service "with great vigour.
There is none of that hypocrisy which, in the Latin
Church, limits the indulgence of curiosity to the corner
of the eye.

The priests and their ministrations are concealed behind
a huge wooden screen during the service, while a mono-
tonous chant is going on outside. The air of restlessness
and inattention which prevails among the congregation,
the nasal twang and lugubrious monotony of the chant, the
absence of instrumental music, make the Greek service, to
a stranger, far less impressive than that of the Church of
Rome. Besides, the scenic effect of the latter is far
superior. Before a high altar decked with flowers, lights,
and costly plate, stand the priests, richly attired, measured
and graceful in every gesture, or motionless in silent
prayer, with white-robed acolytes kneeling below, and all
the while over the kneeling people ring the sweet psalms
of the choir, and the ground beneath shakes with the
thunders of the organ — the whole scene so contrived as
to fix the attention, charm the sense, please the taste, and
calm the spirits — the very perfection of ritual. In the
Greek Church all these accessories are wanting, and the
consecration of the elements, the grand climax of this
sacred drama, is performed, not coram populo, but behind
the scenes ; while at intervals, the sudden opening and
sudden shutting of one of the doors at which a priest is
seeu to appear for a moment and vanish with most irre-

106 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

verent haste produce an effect which, if scenic at all, is
one of the effects of the comic stage. But I forbear to
dwell on the subject; I should be, indeed, sorry to say
anything savouring of irreverent jest. A stranger judges
such matters from a false point of view. He cannot
sympathise with the thousand associations which, growing
up with men from their infancy and their home, give a
sanctity and solemnity to rites which at first sight seem
trivial and even profane; nor can he make due allowance
for that long familiarity which makes men callous to
anomalies and absurdities and blunts the edge of ridicule.

The only moment in which the service appears striking
to a spectator, though, from the nervous and fussy manner
peculiar to Greeks, scarcely solemn even then, is that in
which a door in the great screen opens, and the priest
appears with the consecrated elements, the wafer on his
head, and the cup in his hand, both covered with an em-
broidered cloth. All the congregation cross themselves
(in Greek fashion, from right to left), and stoop down,
making a gesture as if to touch the ground with their
hands. This last is a Turkish fashion.

This church at Argos, though a building of yesterday,
differs in no important detail, either inside or out, from
the oldest churches of the country. The rigid and
unchangeable character which marks the Eastern Church
in all things, is most patent in its ecclesiastical architecture.
St. Sophia, erected a.d. 537, has served as the model for
all subsequent churches. Of course I do not mean that
all the details of St. Sophia are repeated in every case —
indeed, there is probably no exact copy in petto of the
original — but that the essential divisions are maintained

A GREEK CHURCH.

107

and carried out into detail, as well as the size of the
building and the means of the builders have permitted.

A brief description of one suffices, with slight variation,
for all. The general form is a Greek cross with a cupola
in the centre, each of the four spaces between the adjacent
arms of the cross being occupied by a kind of aisle, com-
pleting the square. At the east end are three apses.

At the west end is a porch, proaulion, sometimes part
of the main building, sometimes an addition or ' lean-to/
Entering from the porch, we are in the main body of the
church, which is divided by a low wooden railing into two
parts. The western is called the narthex, and is appro-
priated to the women; the eastern to the men. An
oblong space in the centre of the latter, reaching to the
foot of the screen, is separated off and stalled round.
Some of the stalls are appropriated to the officiating
ministers j the rest are occupied by the principal laymen.
This space is called, from the stalls, which are on three
sides of it, stasidia. We now come to the distinctive
feature of an Eastern church, the great screen, or eicono-
stasis, which runs from north to south, shutting out the
altar from the view of the congregation. It is of great
height, reaching sometimes to the roof, and is panelled
into compartments, each having a saint depicted on it of
the stiff, angular, conventional type which has been in
immemorial use among Greek Christians, for their painting
is as little progressive as their architecture. This elaborate
screen and the disposition of the stalls remind one of the
retablo and the choir of a Spanish church ; but there is
this all-important difference, that the altar is before the
retablo, but behind the eiconostasis. Behind this screen

108 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

are the three apses above mentioned. The central apse is
called bema, containing the altar detached from the wall,
and behind it the synthro7ios, or throne for the bishop and
clergy, such as we see in San Clemente and other ancient
churches in Rome. The northern apse is the prothesis, or
credenza, as it is called in Italy ; the southern the diaconicon
or skenophylakion — that is to say, sacristy, vestry. The
gynsekonitis was a gallery intended, as its name imports,
for women. In St. Sophia and the larger churches it
extended along three sides of the building — every side but
the eastern — and corresponded in position with our tri-
forium. In the smaller churches it occupied only the
western end. It had been gradually disused, but has
been revived again, as I have said, in the Cathedral of
Argos. I believe that even the Greek Church has felt
the influence of that spiritual movement which has created
the ultra-montane party in the Latin Church, and which
has agitated even the most Protestant communities.
Patriotism, too, combines to stimulate among the Greeks
a love and imitation of those ecclesiastical antiquities
which are to them symbols of national faith and national
independence. The gynsekonitis at Argos is perhaps a
symptom of the general feeling — a straw which tells how
the wind blows.

To collect the various terms used at different times to
designate the internal arrangements and furniture of an
Eastern church, to trace their etymology, and to deter-
mine their primary meaning, is a work of no idle anti-
quarian curiosity, but full of deep interest to all who
profess themselves Christians.

I cannot here do more than glance at the subject ;

A GREEK CHURCH.

109

neither my knowledge nor my limits permit me to treat
of it at length. It seems, indeed, impertinent to make a
brief episode out of what might well furnish matter for
volumes— a subject which has exercised the marvellous
erudition of Du Cange. Working on the basis of Du
Cange, Allatius, and others, Mr. J. M. Neale has written
a profound and elaborate treatise in the work I have
already quoted. This portion of his book is, however,
rather ecclesiological than historical ; he collects facts, but
abstains from drawing inferences as to the progressive
changes of ritual and discipline in the early Church. In
ecclesiastical historians generally one observes a tendency
to represent both ritual and discipline as self-evolved from
Apostolic practice and teaching, and to ignore the accre-
tions and admixtures which the Church may have con-
tracted from the observances of Paganism, or the customs

of the world.

When Christianity first became dominant, the buildings
most easily convertible into churches were the basilicas,
or court-houses ; and hence the name still retained by the
oldest churches in Rome. To this fact is owing the
existence of the Bema, where the bishop sits enthroned in
the chair of the Athenian Arch on, or the Roman Praetor.
The screen, or eiconostasis, is still commonly known by
the term Kiyic\l$SQ, or SpvfaKToi, signifying lattice-work ;
the very words formerly employed to designate the
wooden partition which, in an Athenian court, separated
the parties concerned in the business from the spectators.
The gradual enlargement of this partition marks the
growth of sacerdotal power and of the judaizing spirit
which led men to reproduce, as far as they could, in

110 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

their churches and ritual, the destroyed temple of Jeru-
salem and the abolished ceremonies of the Mosaic law.
Thus the portion within the screen represented the Holy of
Holies, and indeed was sometimes so called. The curtains
over the doorways in the screen are due probably to the
same source. St. Sophia had its ' beautiful gates/ like the
second temple. The Nestorian and Abyssinian Churches
have restored, I believe, the tabernacle and the ark.

When Christianity had consummated its triumph over
the old religion, the heathen temples were converted into
churches. Of this fact, too, we find some traces in the
nomenclature of the modern church. For instance, the
vestibule is called Pronaos, and the body of the edifice
Naos, exactly as in the Parthenon.

One of the most perplexing words in etymology and
application is the word narthex. In modern times it is
applied to the porch outside the church at the west end; in
old days it was given to a part of the church itself, which
was separated off for the use of the catechumens and
penitents, ' dreeing their dole.' Afterwards, when the
world was Christianized, and all were admitted into the
Church in infancy, and at the same time the vigorous
discipline of earlier days declined, catechumens and peni-
tents disappeared, and the place in the sacred building
vacated by them was given to the women. Narthex has
been derived from nerthe, because it was belovj the ambon
or body of the church ; but this derivation is rejected by
Du Cange, Stephanus, and Neale, who suppose that it
was so called from its shape, narrow and long, like the
stalk of the plant of that name. This seems very unsatis-
factory. That it was narrow and long in the earlier days

A GREEK CHURCH. Ill

we have no evidence, indeed, all probability is against it ;
the more numerous the catechumens the broader it would
be; and, admitting the hypothesis, the simile is not one
likely to commend itself to the popular mind.

The narthex is, in its primary signification, the umbel-
liferous plant called kaldmi in modern Greek, the Ferula
communis of Linnaeus, which grows abundantly about
the bay of Phalerum. In the stalk is a pith, which
makes good tinder when dry. Hence the story, that in
it Prometheus brought down from heaven the 'fount
of fire ' which he gave to men. The word was used
afterwards for a casket to hold any precious thing, a
medicine-chest, and, metaphorically, a book containing
medical recipes, a dietary. From this myth the narthex
acquired also a symbolical meaning ; and- hence its em-
ployment in the mysteries of Bacchus as a wand borne
by the worshippers. Now, is it possible that the ecclesi-
astical meaning of the word may be derived from either
of these significations ? May the catechumens have been
regarded as under a kind of medical treatment, their
souls requiring to be healed and cleansed before they were
fit for admission among the sound flock ? A period of
probation and a spiritual regimen was prescribed to them,
and the term ' dietary ' does not seem very far-fetched
as applied to their condition and their appointed place.

On the other hand, I think that a strong case may be
made out for its derivation from the mystic wand. At
the time of the final agonies of Paganism, the only
poi-tions of the old religion which retained any vitality, at
least among those of Greek race and language, were the
mysteries. Here alone persons agitated by religious

112 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

hopes and fears, distracted by doubt, oppressed with a
sense of sin, found pleasing excitement in dark riddles
and symbolic rites, and consolation in the promised im-
mortality. The hierophauts proclaimed the unity of God,
and held out to the initiated a remedy for the evils of
this life. It was doubtless upon this same class of minds
that Christianity acted with the greatest power.

There can be no question that multitudes of the early
converts had been initiated in some Pagan mysteries, and
as little question that the first Christian ritual was adapted
so as to convey the great truths of the Gospel in the form
most calculated to impress them on the minds of the con-
gregation. Hence the tendency in the outside world to
confound the Christian with the Pagan mysteries ; hence
the calumnies spread by hostile writers, charging the
Christians with all manner of secret superstitions and
atrocious rites ; hence, too, the violent invectives of the
Fathers against the Pagan rites, from which they were
desirous to distinguish their own. But, from the circum-
stances of the case, we may be sure that the converts
would draw parallels and comparisons between their new
and their old worship, and would apply metaphorically to
the new, terms derived from the old. And if in the
Greek ritual some terms were used which were borrowed
thus from Eleusis or Lebadea, it is no more disgraceful
than the conduct of the Pope who first assumed the title
of Pontifex. I conceive, then, that the universally-known
and abundantly- quoted line which says

7roXXoi pev vap6rjKO(popoi, Travpoi 8e re fidicxoi,

had caused the term narthekophori to be applied to those

A fJREEK CHURCH. 113

who professed a creed but were not fully instructed in its
innermost meanings ; hence it may have been given to
the catechumens of the early Church, and the word
narthex, by no violent change, applied to the place set
apart for them. If this be so, we have in the structure
of every sacred building a complete memorial of the
earliest history of the Christian faith, showing by what
steps it absorbed the religion and identified itself with
the polity of the ancient world.

CHAPTER VII.

KARYA.

A T Argos our American friend and the grave Eleuthe-
-*"*- rius left us to return to Athens. The rest of the party-
started in the opposite direction, on the 20th of April, about
two in the afternoon. It was a day of cloudless sunshine.
Young as the year was, the heat in the town had been ex-
cessive. About noon the thermometer marked 82 on the
shady side of the street. But, as we rounded the north-
eastern shoulder of the hill and pursued our way up the
valley of the Charadrus, fresh breezes from Arcadia met us,
and headache and lassitude departed at their bidding. The
only remains of antiquity which we saw were, first, an
aqueduct of Roman or Byzantine construction, appearing
at intervals in ruined fragments along the hill-side to the
left, and from its direction manifestly intended to carry
some mountain-stream to Argos; and, secondly, further
on to the right, a square tower, apparently Hellenic, built
probably for an outpost to watch and defend the pass.
The scenery grew wilder and the air fresher as we went
on. Instead of bare ground, patched with cistus and
thyme, we found closer and greener herbage; and stunted
shrubs gave place to copse and thicket as our path, now
up the bed of a torrent, now along the steep side of a
ravine, crept and wound and climbed into the bosom

KARYA. 115

of the hills. In about four hours and a half we
came to Karya, a little village nestling in a well-
watered, well-sheltered hollow, on the main range of
Artemisium. The white-walled, red-roofed houses are
scattered on the slope, each with its own green plot of
field and garden beside it. A wreath of blue smoke
curled up from each chimneyless roof, finding its way
through the tiles as best it might. We thought that we
had never seen anything so beautiful. There are, I dare
say, a thousand villages, in high Alpine valleys, which are
every whit as beautiful as Karya ; but it is only after the
eye has been wearied with a succession of barren grey
mountains and burnt brown plains that it feels the true
pleasure of resting on verdure. It was a pleasant fore-
taste of Arcadia. "Whether Karya be really within the
limits of the ancient Arcadia is doubtful. The boundary
did not run, as might have been expected, along the crest
of the hill ; but on its eastern flank, partly along the
upper course of the Inachus. It was sunset as we
entered the village. On a knoll were assembled some
thirty or forty men — nearly all the adult male inha-
bitants — for no graver purpose than confabulation and
1 confumation/ for the cigarette is an unfailing accom-
paniment of the modern lesche. All saluted us with a
low bow, placing at the same time the right hand on the
heart, and raising the left hand to the forehead; a fashion
probably learned from the Turks, and now disused in the
larger towns. We asked for the Demarch, and a dapper
young fellow in Albanian petticoats and fez cap stepped
out. To him we presented a circular letter, with which
the Minister of the Interior had favoured us, addressed

i 2

116 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

to all Government functionaries, requesting them to
afford us all assistance, &c. He had no sooner read it,
or made believe to read it, for I am not sure that he
held it the right way up, than he, ' with open arms as
he would fly, grasped in the comers/ Literally, he
seized each of us by the hand, and ran down the hill
with us to his house, in the best room of which — there
were but two — we were immediately installed, and pre-
sented with jam and a glass of pure cold water in
token of welcome. Here, as everywhere, we found the
most genuine kindness and hospitality ; and if the guests
are not perfectly comfortable, it is certainly from no want
of goodwill on the part of the host. It may, perhaps,
seem ungracious to mention that during the night we
found that the Demarches hospitality was shared by a
multitude of unbidden guests, and that we suffered the
woes, and might have uttered the complaint, of Strep-
siades in the play. 1 As this is the first time I have had
occasion to mention a demarch, I may as well explain
that this ancient title has not come down by tradition
from classical times, but is quite a recent revival. After
the restoration of independence the internal organization
of the country was completely remodelled, and the modern
French system was taken as a pattern and implicitly fol-
lowed. Greece was divided into nomarchies, which were
subdivided into eparchies, which in turn consist of a
certain number of demi, or parishes. These are respec-
tively administered by nomarchs, eparchs, and demarchs,

8d<vfi /ie 8r]fiap^6s tls etc tuiv aTpcofiaTav. — Aristophanes,
Nubes, 37.

117

whose functions correspond to those of the French prefets,
sous-prefets, and maires de commune, each to each.

We left Karya about seven next morning, and walked
on to escape from the tumult of packing and loading; on
which occasions the wrath of Alexander vented itself upon
Alcibiades the bad subject and Pericles the sullen. While
we were there, one after another of the villagers passed
by on their way to their daily work in some distant field.
Each greeted us with a kindly c kalemera ' (koX' -h/iipa),
1 good morning.' We waited for our troop at an angle
of the road which looks over the peaceful village with its
smoking roofs. Close by was a water-mill, constructed
thus : — a strong buttress of wall is built against the hill-
side, and on the top of it a series of wooden troughs
convey a runlet of water at the proper angle to the
wheel. The dripping wall was tufted with lady-ferns
and all manner of luxuriant grasses. We had often
occasion to admire the patient ingenuity with which a
scanty stream of water was brought for miles, in a
channel made along the hill-side, to turn one of these
mill-wheels, and then distributed to the fields below.

It was often our lot to rest in the neighbourhood of
such a mill, for there we were sure to find the two essen-
tial requisites, water and shade.

I remember, in particular, this of Karya, and the
pleasant half-hour we spent listening to the groaning of
the wheel and the plashing of the water. There was a
fresh Alpine breeze blowing, a bright sunshine glistening
on dewy grass — earth and sky ' washed/ as it were, 'with
morning/ It was a scene which would have inspired
Theocritus with an idyl, destitute indeed of sentiment,

1]8 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

but full of that frank and genuine human feeling which
is the salt of literature.

I am persuaded that if travellers' books were written
in the same honest spirit, and without reference to the
effect to be produced on sentimental readers, we should
find that the scenes which dwelt most vividly on their
memory were those associated with recollections of per-
sonal comfort and enjoyment.

The rarity of any indications of a taste for the picturesque
in ancient literature has of late years been a good deal dis-
cussed and variously explained. The chief reasons assigned
are, first, that the Greeks, living habitually amidst the
most beautiful natural scenery, got to feel for it the same
indifference which we observe at this day in the Swiss
and Tyrolese. T remember one of the Yaudois peasants,
whose cottage was in a beautiful valley of the upper Alps,
complaining bitterly of the { brutto paese ' in which it
was his misfortune to dwell. Secondly, the Greeks were
by nature a sensuous, and by circumstances a practical,
people. Thirdly, they were in the habit of personifying
everything. Not only did they hold, with the modern
poet, that there was ' a spirit in the woods,' but their
creed was more precise still. They held that every wood
had its separate spirit, or spirits, taking a corporeal shape,
Dryads or Hamadryads, as the case might be. Thus the
sense of the solemnity, beauty, and mystery of nature,
which for us moderns spreads a vague charm over all
landscape, was for the ancients condensed into a single
superstition, wanting grandeur as a stimulus to the
imagination, and wanting variety as a theme for poetry.

These reasons have all, I think, a certain truth, but each

KARYA. 119

is liable to qualification and abatement. First, the
scenery of Greece is beautiful in various degrees. No
familiarity with the puny mountains of Attica would ac-
count for the indifference of an Athenian to the sublimity
of Taygetus and Parnassus. Secondly, all modern peoples
are sensuous in their way, and some eminently practical;
yet we find that neither of these qualities prevents indi-
viduals among them from having a love for the beauties
of nature. The most picturesque of poets was a Scotch-
man and a writer to the signet. Thirdly, all genuine
belief in Dryads and Hamadryads had died out before the
historical age of Greece. I am persuaded that neither
Pindar nor Sophocles, much less Euripides or Theocritus,
had the smallest expectation of • meeting a goddess when
he went into a wood ' (to use Mr. Ruskin's phrase), or
felt his fancy hampered by any such belief among his
contemporaries.

Therefore, taking all these reasons together, they do
not appear sufficient to account for the alleged difference
between the ancient and modern feeling for natural beauty.
I say f the alleged difference/ for I think that the real
difference was neither so wide nor so essential as has
been assumed.

The Greeks had, as all admit, a keen appreciation of
such natural objects as contributed to their personal com-
fort and pleasure, the shady grove, the greensward, the
babbling stream ; while the strikingly significant epithets
assigned to more remote objects, earth and sea, rivers and
mountains, argue in the people a habit of acute observa-
tion quite at variance with the supposition of indif-
ference.

120 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

A people who so ardently clung to life, and had so
unaffected a horror of death, could not but be profoundly-
touched by the sad contrast of the abiding permanence of
natural objects — the sure recurrence of natural pheno-
mena, with the brevity and uncertainty of human life.
Hence, probably, in early days the deification of the ever-
lasting hills, the ever-flowing rivers, of sun and moon and
stars ; hence, too, the retention of the language of that
old religion in days when real belief in the personality of
its deities had long died out. The gods lived no longer
in the faith of reason, but their names were to a Greek
ear significant of the power, the beauty, and the majesty
which still haunted their hills and woods. Language to
them pregnant with deep meanings and implicit pathos,
now that the tradition is broken, seems to a modern ear
fantastic and absurd. For us ' mighty Pan ' is doubly
dead.

Neither, again, were the ancients not insensible to the
subtle sympathies and analogies which may be found be-
tween moods of the mind and aspects of nature. Familiar
instances are the sullen Achilles, nursing his spleen as he
gazes £7rt oivoira ttovtov, and the bereaved Chryses mourn-
ing as he walks irapa 6iva 7roAi;^>Aota'j3oio OaXaaarjg.

More than this we find in no people, and in no poet,
before this nineteenth century. Cowper only echoes
Virgil, himself echoing some voice from Greece, when he

cries —

Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade !

And Home's sentiment is contained implicitly in many
an ancient poet, when he makes Lady Randolph say —

KARYA. 121

Ye woods and wilds, whose melancholy gloom
Accord with my soul's sadness, &c.

The musings of the melancholy Jaques might, with
little risk of anachronism, be put into the mouth of Timon
of Athens. And, to descend to common prose, what ancient
Greek ever showed more insensibility to the sublimities of
nature than does Horace Walpole, who wrote thus to Sir
H. Mann not a hundred years ago? — '(Aug. 27, 1765.)
Well, after twenty-three years of designs and irresolutions,
I am actually leaving England ! You will ask kindly whether
almost any foreign thought in those years did not point
beyond Paris ? O, yes ! — but, alas ! think how ill I have
been, not to mention that I am older by twenty-three
years. That space has made Alps and Apennines grow
twenty times taller, and more wrinkled and horrid/

Thus Walpole, in his most sentimental mood. And
we may be sure that, if anything resembling the now
prevalent enthusiasm for scenery had been felt by his
contemporaries, we should have found it affected by him.

The present fashion of nature-worship is a thing of
yesterday, and will not be a thing of to-morrow. It is a
phase of literature and art which will pass away. A
thousand causes contribute to it; as, for instance, the
growth of the natural sciences, the exhaustion of old sub-
jects for poetry and painting, the habit of holiday-tours
consequent on the increased facilities for travelling, and
productive of increased accommodations for travellers. To
the majority, the hotels of Switzerland are at least as
attractive as its glaciers. I doubt, indeed, whether it can
with truth be said of any one that he ' loves Nature for
her own sake/ The most enthusiastic lover of Nature

122 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

loves her because of the effect which the contemplation of
her produces upon his own mind and feelings — an effect
not so direct and simple as that avowed by the older
poets ; so refined, it may be, as scarcely to be traceable
by any mental analysis, but very real notwithstanding.
To love Nature for her own sake would be a senseless and
objectless fetish-worship. There are, no doubt, many who
persuade themselves that they are thus unselfish in their
passion, and thereby render themselves guilty of an ido-
latry as extravagant as that of any errant knight for his
Dulcinea. But if it did not serve some useful purpose,
it would not have lasted so long. ' To sit on rocks, to
muse o'er flood and fell/ is an excellent alterative regi-
men for persons wearied with the strife and the turmoil
of Westminster and Mayfair. The Greek, whose daily
life even in the city was much more simple, regular,
and healthful, and whose ' city ' was not a measureless
expanse of unsightly brick and stucco-work, canopied with
a never-lifting cloud of smoke, needed not, and knew not,
the medicinal power of rural solitude. Their artists, who
daily saw far other models of human beauty than those
now available — men who have been muffled in flannel and
women who have been imprisoned in stays — held with
their poets that the proper study of mankind was man,
and were content with dashing in a rough sketch of
scenery as background to his picture of some historic or
heroic deed. 1 To them the marsh and the mountains of
Marathon were of quite secondary interest as compared
with the battle. Now-a-days the artist who, in default

See Pausanias's description of the painting in the Pcecile (i. 15, 4).

KARYA. 123

of a better subject, loves nature as per order, sells his
out-of-door sketches at fabulous prices. If from the
body of professing lovers of nature we make the deduc-
tions due to fashion, affectation, and interest, we shall
find but a small residuum ; and those, if w r e could but
analyse their feelings, would be found, as I have said, to
be loving Nature not for her sake but their own. Rugged
mountains and wild glens are retained in the memory,
peopled by a world of pleasant associations, good sport,
scientific discovery, healthful exercise, hearty appetite, the
sense of renovated strength, and the buoyant spirits of
holiday. It is but right and proper that our poets who
share these feelings, should sing them ; but our poetasters
have over -ridden the hobby. The conventional language
which they employ will probably be to their children a
jargon as unintelligible as it is to a Frenchman or an
Italian of the present day. The purely descriptive poems
of Wordsworth and others will be forgotten ; those which
deal with humanity, remembered, and popular in propor-
tion as they are human. If Greece ever passed through
this particular phase of sentimentalism, all the literature
belonging to it has perished, as it deserved. But there
was one reason which has not been brought forward yet,
why this could not have been. It is a mood of mind
which requires seclusion and solitude for its aliment. The
Greeks were the most gregarious of people ; their literature
was intended for the theatre and the stoa, to be declaimed
and recited and sung in public, not read in the closet.
It is impossible for a thousand people at once to be senti-
mental and tender on the beauties of nature. What the
aforesaid Timon* may have been we have no means of

124 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

knowing. His contemporaries would not listen to him,
and he had no reading public to fall back upon, composed
of persons who once a year, according to the fashion, for-
sook the city and wandered about the mountains, Timons
for the nonce. 1

So pleasant was the spot where we were waiting, that
we felt almost sorry to see at length our troop of horses
winding up the hill to join us.

1 The whole subject, which the nature and limits of my hook com-
pel me to treat thus summarily, has been discussed at length by Mr.
Ruskin in the fourth volume of Modern Painters, and by Mr. Cope
in the Cambridge Essays for 1856.

CHAPTER VIII.

NESTANE AND MANTINEA.

HP HE pass by which we crossed the Arteniisian range is
-*- beyond question that called anciently Prinus. A
more circuitous pass to the north was called Klimax. It
is possible that the Prinus may have derived its name
from the Greek equivalent for ilex (Trplvog). Near the
top is a little church, dedicated, as are most of the high-
places of Christian Greece, to Saint Elias, with a group
of ilex-trees beside it. In all likelihood this was the
site of an ancient temple, possibly of the temple to
Artemis, the patroness of the mountain called after her.
In old times the temenos surrounding any temple was
habitually filled with trees, and the ilex-trees of Saint
Elias may be the descendants of the sacred grove where,
after half their journey done, travellers stayed for rest,
shelter, or prayer. The pass ascends into the region of
pines, mostly black and pointed, like the Scotch fir, while
here and there one spreads like a cedar. The flowers are
abundant — violets, hyacinths, blue-bells, wood-aneniones,
and yellow ranunculus, and in places there is a thick growth
of shrubs, the dwarf-ilex, and the juniper. Immediately
to the south rises a bare rocky peak, one of the highest
summits of Artemisium. On the further side of the ridge
a steep and stony path leads down to Tzipiana. We tread

126 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

for some distance upon grey and blue slates, the edge
uppermost, mixed here and there with quartz.

The traveller who enters Arcadia from this side will
assuredly be disappointed. The prospect as he descends
the western slope of Artemisium neither corresponds with
the poetical and proverbial renown of the country, nor
bears out the illusive promise of Karva. Before him is a
bleak chain of grey limestone, with hardly so much as a
scantling of dark pine or patch of green pasture, and
below, at the foot of the hills, a flat, cold, sodden plain.
And yet that barren mountain is Maenalus, the favourite
haunt of Pan, whom, even in Pausanias's time, the shep-
herds thereabouts heard piping. But it must have been
the other side of Msenalus which Pan loved, and the
Arcadia which lies to the westward, that poets have
vaunted for pastoral beauty, where, instead of grey rock
and sodden plain, there are deep dells thick with wood,
each bearing its tributary rill to the Alphseus and green
alps of sloping pasture-land between.

'Arcadia/ when used in the wider sense, including
Mantinea and Tegea, is only, like ' Italy ' according to
Metternich, a geographical expression. These two cities
have a history of their own, and are not so closely con-
nected with Arcadia proper as are Neuchatel and Geneva
with the forest cantons. Their history was intimately
connected with that of Greece in general, and was com-
plicated with the alliances and quarrels of their neigh-
bours. In one point only the Mantineans and Tegeans
were uniformly consistent — they always took opposite
sides, hating each other with the hate of near neighbours,
and illustrating the old saw, ' one thicket cannot keep

■ NESTANE AND MA'XTINEA. 127

two thieves/ The real Arcadians dwelt in their mountain-
villages apart, sometimes overawed, but never enslaved,
by Sparta. It was they who furnished the redoubtable
mercenaries to the highest bidder — another Swiss trait.
After the building of Megalopolis they seem to have
gradually lost whatever was distinctive in their national
character.

At half-past eleven we reached Tzipiana, at the foot of
the pass. Traversing its steep and narrow street, we came
to a fountain, a few hundred yards away from the village
on the right, where we halted for breakfast. There was but
little shade, and the fountain was puddled by cattle ; but
close by, a ruined church of the Panaghia afforded us
shelter. We had, the while, a fine view of Tzipiana,
niched in the steep hill-side ; on a ledge, a thousand feet
above, a large convent with cypresses, and, hanging over
all, a fantastic spire of crag.

The fountain aud church are on a low ridge connect-
ing the main chain with a little outlying hill, which,
sloping upwards from the ridge aforesaid, falls on the
other sides sheer down to the plain. On the top is
a level table-land. Here, strolling without any purpose
after breakfast, I made a discovery. 1 Where the higher

1 At least so I thought at the time. I afterwards observed that
the French map gives at this place the dots which are the conven-
tional signs of ancient ruins ; and I have since found, from a map in
the first volume of Curtius's Peloponnesos, that he, or Eoss, had
already identified them with Nestane. ' Pereant qui ante nos nostra
dixerunt.' I leave the text as it was originally written, for the
reasons mentioned in the preface. The position, hy-the-bye, which
he gives to the ' Philippos Quelle' is not nearly so suitable to the
words of Pausanias as that which I have suggested.

128 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

level, ascends from the ridge, are the remains of walls,
varying in thickness from fifteen to twenty feet, built of
large rough stones, without mortar, in nearly straight
courses, apparently of a very remote antiquity. There is
a gateway, defended, like that at My cense, by a projecting
wall. The fortifications may be traced on each side to
the point where the descent becomes precipitous, and
walls unnecessary. Nearly in the centre of the platform
thus defended is the basement of an oblong building,
about fifty-four feet by twenty-two, and in other places
the ground has been artificially smoothed. These are
clearly the remains of some ancient town. So far as I
know, they have not been observed by any traveller, for
they are not visible from the road below, and the tint of
the walls does not differ from that of the grey limestone
cliff which forms with them the circuit of defence. The
question is, what name are we to assign to them ? Pau-
sanias, after telling us that there were two roads from
Argos to Mantinea, the Prinus and the Klimax, proceeds
to describe the objects on the latter, up to the gates of
Mantinea, then recurs to the former route — which is our
route — though without again mentioning its name. He
says (viii. 7, 1), ' As you cross by Artemisium to the
Mantinean territory, you will come to a plain called
c Idle/ as in fact it is ; for the rain-water which comes
down into it from the mountains makes the plain inca-
pable of cultivation, and nothing hinders this same plain
from being a lake but that the water disappears into a
chasm in the ground.' Now, to the right of the hill on
which we are standing, lies a plain embosomed in hills,
and divided from the great plain of Mantinea by a lower

M A N T I N El A AND NE5TANE.

P/.ilr ■-,

'

J H /..'l:

/,>/'/■ IV Corker '. Sen ■/•/.•. West Strand

NESTANE AND MANTINEA. 129

range, parallel to Artemisium. This plain is under water
during the winter months, and has all the appearance of
the dried bed of a lake. Indeed, a lake it would be, but
that the water finds its exit by some subterraneous channel
(or katabothron). It is, indeed, no longer uncultivated,
for when we passed, April 21, the blades of late-sown
corn were just making their appearance; a change due
either to the natural enlargement of the emissary, or to
the accumulation of a permeable alluvial soil. Here, I
think, we must fix the Argon Pedion, not where Colonel
Leake places it — some miles to the south — for then the
words of Pausanias would not be applicable. The tra-
veller would reach Mantiuea by this road without ever
crossing or approaching it. Pausanias proceeds : ' On
the left of this plain, called Argon, there is a hill belong-
ing to the Mantineans, containing ruins of the tent of
Philip, son of Amyntas, and of a village, Nestane, for
they say that Philip encamped by this Nestane, and the
fountain there they call to this day ' Philippion/ ....
And, after the ruins of Nestane, there is a much-revered
temple of Demeter, and every year the Mantineans cele-
brate a feast to her. And close to Nestane lies some
land named that of Maira, which you might almost call
a part of the plain Argon, and the road across the Argon
is of ten stades. And after crossing a hill of no great
height you will come to another plain,' &c.

I have little or no doubt that the wall which I found
is the wall which was a ruin in Pausanias's time, that of
Nestane, originally a ptoliethron of heroic times, then a
fortress guarding the pass into Arcadia, and afterwards
one of the komse, or villages, among which the inha-

K

130 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

bitants of Mantinea were distributed by Agesipolis after
the capture of that city. The temple of Demeter, which
he places ' after the ruins/ was perhaps that of which the
foundations are still apparent, venerable for its antiquity
rather than its size or splendour. The fountain by which
we breakfasted was the Philippion. The ruins which Pau-
sanias calls those of Philip's tent were perhaps the remains
of a heroum on the lower level, dedicated to Philippus, a
mythic personage, whose memory was swallowed up in
the notoriety of his historical namesake. It may be that
the Macedonian really did encamp here. If on the very
threshold of Arcadia he found a heroum of Philippus, he
would certainly make the most of so happy an omen.
The land called that of Maira is probably the ground in
front of the hill over which our road passes, which,
though not divided by any hill from the Argon, is on a
somewhat higher level, and would afford a dry road
all the year round. It is clear that Pausanias visits
Nestane on his way from the Prinus to Mantinea, without
any intimation that he diverges from the main road.

That this road passed by Tzipiana is, I conceive,
certain. There is no pass to the southward which could
be called a way from Argolis to Mantinea, in contra-
distinction from the roads to Tegea; indeed, so far as my
information went, there is no pass whatever southward of
this over Artemisium practicable for horses. The pass
from Karya to Tzipiana corresponds in every respect to
the Prinus. Now, while Mantinea is about four miles
north-west of Tzipiana, Nestane, in Colonel Leake's map,
is placed nearly six miles to the south of it — which by
no means squares to the author's words. If it had been

NE8TANE AND MANTINEA. 131

in that position it would have been described on the
road between Mantinea and Tegea. According to his
map, the Argon is drained by the river Ophia, whose kata-
bothra are on the opposite side of the plain — in direct
contradiction of the inference to be drawn from Pausanias's
statement that the water re-appeared at Deine in Argolis.
Pausanias, as we have seen, mentions ' another plain/ which
Colonel Leake supposes to be the part of the plain south
of Tzipiana, if I understand his meaning. But this plain
does not lie in the road from his Nestane to Mantinea.
Moreover, in this plain is a fountain which is said to be
two stades 1 from Mantinea. No part of the plain below
Tzipiana is less than three miles from that city. By the
' other plain/ therefore, I understand Pausanias to mean
the plain of Mantinea itself.

The ' hill of no great height' mentioned by Pausanias,
is the shoulder of Alesium, on descending which is a
fountain by the wayside, which, if ' twelve stades ' be the
right reading, may be the fountain Arne, as that is about
its distance from the walls of Mantinea.

On the slope of this same hill is a recess, which must,
I think, have been the upper end of the stadium, though
the plough has levelled so completely the artificial
mounds which projected to form the two sides, that it is

1 The MSS. and Edd. here give diro t^s yrjs Tavrrjs, hut obviously
it should be airb rrjs nrjyrjs ravrrjs. A various reading gives ( 1 2
stades ;' but even if this he the true reading, it will not make the con-
clusions of Colonel Leake meet the text of Pausanias. I may also
mention that vTrepfias ov ttoKv is not properly translated by ' proceeding
a little further' (Leake's Jforea, iii. 48), but as I have rendered it,
' after crossing a hill of no great height.'

K 2

132 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

no wonder it should have passed unobserved. I should
not have seen it, but that the semicircular slope, too
steep for the plough, was green with grass, while the
ground above and below was in furrow. Be this as it
may, Pausanias's words show that it was somewhere
outside the walls, and thus contradict a rash assertion
made by Forchammer, in his pamphlet on the Topography
of Athens, to the effect that the stadium was always
within the walls. His object is to prove that the Pan-
athenaic stadium was inside the walls of Athens, which in
my opinion it certainly was not. His reason for advo-
cating this view, is simply that Colonel Leake had
already established the opposite. Colonel Leake proceeds
on the old-fashioned plan of observing his facts and
collecting his authorities before framing his theory.
Forchammer adopts the reverse process. ' Facts/ says
an English proverb, ' are stubborn things/ I wonder if
there be a corresponding proverb in German.

To return to Mantinea. Anything more desolate than
the site of this famous city cannot be conceived. A flat,
treeless, marshy plain extends on all sides to the foot of
bare mountains. The streams are ditches where the
waters, filled with noxious creatures, stagnate rather than
flow. The original site of the city, we are told, was on
a hill of no great elevation, which retained the name of
Ptolis. There is such a hill to the northward, not far
from the walls, with a church and a few trees upon it.
Why the Mantineans abandoned the old, and to all ap-
pearance more eligible site, and why they did not retain
the old city for the Acropolis of the new, are questions
we have no means of answering. The walls were built

NESTANE AND MANTINEA. 133

originally of unbaked brick, with probably, in parts only
a single course of stone at the basement; and a river, the
Ophis, ran through the city. The Spartan king Agesi-
polis, in the year 385 b.c, stopped the course of the
river, and thus flooding the country to a depth above the
height of the stone basement, sapped the walls. From
which, says Xenophon, 1 men learned not to have a river
flowing through fortifications. His narrative gives to
Agesipolis credit for having originally conceived this
method of assault ; but Pausanias, who probably by im-
plication refers to Xenophon, says that Cimon had already
employed it against Eion on the Strymon, and that the
Spartan only imitated an established and notorious plan.
As against the ordinary engines employed by besieging
armies it was found that unbaked brick offered a better
resistance than stone, just as we have lately discovered
that earth-works are better than granite walls against the
engines of besiegers in our day. When the city was
rebuilt, the river seems to have been diverted and divided
into two streams, one on each side. 2 At the point of
junction, some little distance from the city, towards the
south-east, are the foundations of a tower or fort. Colonel
Leake has gathered from the words of Xenophon 3 that

1 Xen. Hellen. v. 2, 7.

* The course of the streams about Mantinea is marked differently
in the French map, in that of Curtius and in that of Colonel Leake.
Not one of them corresponds with my observations. In this alluvial
soil, liable as it is to constant inundation, changes may be very fre-
quent and very speedy.

3 Hellen. 1. c. — ao^aTtpcov yevofjLevav ravrr) ye rwu dvdponrtov, to

134 NOTES OF STUDY AXD TRAVEL.

the principal river of the plain had been artificially
diverted from its course in order that it might flow
through the old city; but I do not think that the passage
necessarily conveys this meaning, and it is highly impro-
bable that, suffering already from a superfluity of moisture,
they should have brought another river within their walls,
at the risk, too, of increasing the fatal miasma, which has
of late desolated, and must always have infected the dis-
trict. The streams which are now so insignificant would
then be considerably increased by systematic drainage of
the neighbouring land, and when combined would form a
river large enough to produce the result attributed to it.
"When under the auspices of Epaminondas the jNIan-
tineans returned from their villages, they built the walls
on their former site. The local attachment so powerful
among Greeks, 1 the veneration for the temples and altars,
and the claims of families to the sites and ruins of the
former houses, would all combine to induce them not to
build a new city, but rebuild the old ; and the presence of
polygonal masonry in the walls and theatre tends to
confirm this supposition. The same is implied in the
language of Pausanias, who tells us, that after the sur-
render of the city some small part of it was still left in

firj 8ia retx^v 7TOTafxov noie'io-dai. Mr. Grote discusses the question (vol.
x. p. 49). The old reading is t<5 /xj), k.t.X. I am inclined to think
that the words are not Xenophon's, but the c inept comment' of some
scholiast, which has crept in by accident, or been interpolated de-
signedly. The sentiment and expression are more like Polyaenus than
Xenophon.

&>$• 8ftv6v rj (^iXo^copt'a. — Aristoph. Tespce, 834.

NESTANE AND MANTINEA.

135

possession of the old inhabitants, 1 and the others, after
their dispersion, were restored lig rrjv warpida after the
battle of Leuctra. In one of the temples he saw a statne
of iEsculapius, the work of Alcamenes. Now Alcamenes
was a pupil of Phidias, and cannot be supposed to have
survived the restoration of the Mantineans, in 370 b.c.
Near the theatre, too, was the v so-called common
hearth, of a circular form/ on the spot said to be the
grave of Antinoe, daughter of Kepheus. The place
thus traditionally holy was surely included in the walls
of the older city ; and its existence would alone coun-
terbalance in their eyes any practical advantages offered
by a new site. Taught by experience, the Mantineans
reconstructed their walls in a new method. They made
the stone basement at least three courses high, and
upon this they built their superstructure of unburnt
brick. So much, at least, is probable from the appear-
ance of the wall, which would scarcely have been ruined
so regularly otherwise. In some few places, however, I
found four and even five courses of stone, but, as a
general rule, there are only three.

At the gates the walls overlap each other, so that the
approach is by a passage, from both sides of which the
assailants would be liable to attack in their turn. This
is the same system of defence which was adopted at
Mycenae, Tiryns, and other ancient cities. Perhaps in
this case it was copied immediately from the ruins of

1 Mr. Grote seems to have overlooked this distinct statement of
Pausanias when he with great acuteness deduces the fact from a
comparison of Xenophon and Strabo (vol. x. p. 5 1 , note).

136 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

Nestane. At Mantinea it is still further elaborated by
another wall in the shape of a gnomon, built from the
inner, and covering the outer of the two walls which form
the gateway.

Within the circuit are many foundations, but none that
can be assigned to any particular edifice except the theatre,
which, judging from the polygonal work of which it in
great part consists, may have belonged to the older city.
I say ' may have belonged/ because there is reason to
think that the Greeks continued occasionally to employ
polygonal work long after the regular courses of squared
stones had become the style generally adopted. This is a
point which I shall recur to hereafter. Colonel Leake
says that the diameter of the theatre was about 240 feet.
We measured it along the ruins of the stage wall, and
found it 150 feet only. A line at right-angles from the
centre of this wall to the outer wall of the cavea measured
160 feet. This is, I think, the only instance in which we
repeated a measurement made by him without verifying
its exactness.

The only living thing we saw at Mantinea was a pea-
sant who brought with him a dead thing in the shape of
a wild duck, which, being purchased by the cook, furnished
forth our dinner at Tripolitza. Towards this, our destined
halting-place, we took our way as the evening approached,
first over flat, marshy ground with corn-fields and fallows ;
then, as the level rises towards the westward hills, between
vineyards, each with its wine-press in the corner and
divided by hedgerows from its neighbours. About half-
way, and opposite to a projecting spur of the mountain, I
observed the remains of a transverse wall, apparently

NESTANE AND MANTINEA. 137

ancient. It may have been a defensive work along the
boundary line of the Mantinean territory.

As Belgium has been called the cock-pit of Europe, so
this plain may be termed the cock-pit of the Peloponnese.
Occupied by comparatively feeble states, which never
united for common defence, Mantinea and Tegea, it lay
between two powerful and always hostile countries, Argos
and Sparta. Its fertility tempted the avarice of its
neighbours, while its flatness, admirably suited for a battle-
field, stimulated their pugnacity. It was the constant
habit of the Spartans, confident of success in a fair field,
to march out hither and offer battle to their enemies.
Accordingly even the fragmentary history which has come
down to us records no less than five pitched battles in
this place, in which they were engaged. There were, no
doubt, many other fights of which no record has been
kept, and forays innumerable. Two of these battles are
interesting above all the others, because they were fought
in the best times of Greece, and have been recorded by
two of her best historians, themselves respectively con-
temporaries of the event. The first was fought in the
year 418 b.c, by the Spartans against the Argives, Man-
tineans, and Athenians, and is related by Thucydides
(b. v. c. 64) ; the second was between Epaminondas, with
his Thebans and the allied army of Spartans, Mantiueans,
and Athenians, and is related by Xenophon. 1

1 Sell. b. vii. c. j. — In Mr. Grote's excellent narrative of this
battle (vol. x. p. 462, sqq.) there is one passage which calls for some
remark. Speaking of the mustering of Epaminondas's troops at Tegea,
and their enthusiastic spirit, he says, ' Even the rustic and half-
armed Arcadian villagers, who had nothing but clubs in place of

138 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

Colonel Leake's elaborate narrative of these battles
leaves nothing to be desired. The historian and the topo-

sword or spear, were eager to share the dangers of the Thebans, and
inscribed upon their shields (probably notbing but miserable squares
of wood) the Theban ensign.' The words of Xenophon, upon which
this statement is founded, are these — iiveypaqbovTo be <a\ twv Kpnabav
07rXirat poiraka e^ovres cos Qrjfiaioi ovres, which Mr. Grote comments
upon in his note thus : ' There seems a sort of sneer in these latter
words, both at the Arcadians and Thebans. The Arcadian club-men
are called 677-Xn-ai, and are represented as passing themselves off to be
as good as Thebans. Sievers and Dr. Thirlwall follow Eckhel in
translating this passage to mean that ' the Arcadian hoplites inscribed
upon their shields the figure of a club, that being the ensign of the
Thebans.' I cannot think this interpretation is the best — at least
until some evidence is produced that the Theban symbol on the
shield was a club.'

I also doubt whether any such evidence can be produced, and, pace
tantorum virorum, I question whether the Greek words will bear
such an interpretation. Neither, on the other hand, can I agree
with Mr. Grote in the sense which he has extracted from the text. I
do not think that any sneer is intended at the Arcadians, who cer-
tainly did not deserve to be sneered at. The Arcadian hoplites
serving under Epaminondas were genuine hoplites — some of the most
formidable troops in Greece — and armed as such. These probably
consisted chiefly of citizens of Tegea, for at this time the great
majority of the mountain Arcadians were siding with Mantinea.
(See on this point Xenophon, vii. 5> 16 ; and Mr. Grote himself, vol.
x. p. 452.) The change of a single letter in the Greek text will
dispose at one blow of the Theban ensign, the club, and of the
rustic and half-armed Arcadian villagers. For poiraka e-^ovres read
pona\a e'xovras. The meaning will then be, 'the Arcadian hoplites
painted on their shields the figures of men with clubs in their hands,'
that is to say, figures of Hercules, which was, of course, the favourite
symbol of Theban soldiers. His club is properly called poirakov.
(Paus. ii. 31,13: Suidas, s. v.) Pindar (01. ix. 30) calls it o-kvtoKov,
contemptuously, ' a mere wooden staff,' a weapon ill-matched with
the trident of Poseidon.

NESTANE AND MANTINEA. 139

grapher, compared and interpreted by his local knowledge,
make the site of each battle certain. The first was at the
foot of the hills to the south-east of the city, on ground
which we crossed in approaching it ; the second was about
five miles further south on the road to Tegea, on ground
which we crossed after leaving it.

A third battle, related byPolybius, in which the Achseans
completely defeated the degenerated Spartans, took place on
the site of the first after an interval of two hundred and
twelve years. The trophy was still standing in the time of
Pausanias. The Spartans had never recovered sufficient
strength to destroy it, else they would, in conformity with
the general practice, assuredly have done so. The erection
of a trophy was not undertaken with a vain hope of perpe-
tuating the memory of the field, but as the recognised legal
mode of asserting a victory. If either party could erect a
trophy at their leisure, it was a proof that they had re-
mained in undisturbed possession of the field. They had
sufficient religious feeling and good taste not to disturb the
tomb of Epaminondas, though probably a mere cenotaph,
which was erected on the spot of the melee in which he
was mortally wounded. I should rather believe the place
called Scope, whither he was carried to die, to be one of
the eminences in the plain of which there are several
commanding an extensive view, and not the rugged spur
of mountain which has already been mentioned as pro-
jecting into the plain. They would hardly carry a dying
man so far from the field, and up so rough a path. Indeed,
as the spot where Epaminondas was wounded is said to
be thirty stades beyond the point where the road to
Pallantium diverged from the road to Tegea, it must, if

140 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

we accept Colonel Leake's view as to the position of
Pallantium, have been considerably nearer to Tegea.
About opposite to the projecting spur which has been
called Scope, the road to Pallantium would naturally
branch off. There are few spots which one would feel
more pleasure in identifying than this. A far livelier
interest is excited by all that is associated with the story
of one famous man, than by that which is only connected
with a host of nameless units.

The central part of the plain was in old times occupied
by a wood of oak and cork trees, of which there is now
not even ' one where a thousand stood/ It had been
prophesied to Epaminondas that Pelagos would be fatal to
him. Supposing that the god used Pelagos in its ordinary
sense of ' Ocean/ he took care never to embark in a naval
expedition, nor even to sail as a passenger in a merchant
ship. But he knew not that the oak forest between
Mantinea and Tegea was called Pelagos. Pausanias
mentions other examples of prophecies, which kept the
word of threatening to the ear and broke it to the
expectation, and says that one might find many such.
Truly one might. ' In that Jerusalem shall Harry die/

About nightfall we reached Tripolitza. We were
lodged in a khan, which, if we did not know that Ibrahim
Pasha had destroyed every house in the place — naTtfiaXtv
lg t^a(f)og ) according to a too common practice in ancient
Greek warfare — one might suppose to be a relic of Turkish
civilization, being built quite on the eastern model. It
surrounds three sides of a little court ; a wall half the
height, with a large door in the middle, occupies the
fourth side, that towards the street. The khan is two

NESTANE AND MANTINEA. 141

stories high ; the ground-floor is tenanted by the ' Irra-
tionals/ as the men of those parts in their preposterous
self-complacency designate horses ; the upper floor, round
which runs a wooden gallery, is divided into rooms for
travellers. The Tabard inn at Southwark and, I fancy, the
inn at Gadshill must have been constructed on much the
same plan, with the addition of a common room for supper
and a kitchen. Neither of these exists in a khan. Con-
stantine made his fire on a flat stone in the first unoccu-
pied corner he could find, and we consumed the results of
his art between four bare walls in an adjoining room.

CHAPTER IX.

FROM TRIPOLITZA BY TEGEA TO SPARTA.

TTTHEN in the year of grace T388 Messire Jean Froissart
and the Sieur Espaing de Lyon, ' en chevauchant
ensemble/ arrived at the town of Casseres, the historian
relates that, while the varlets of the hostelry were getting
supper ready, Sir Espaing said to him, ' Allons, Messire
Jean, allons voir la ville.' To which the historian replied,
( Je vuenV The same remarkable proposal was made, with
the same result, by one English traveller to another after
coffee at the khan of Tripolitza on the morning of the
22nd of April, a.d. 1856.

But in truth there is very little to see. The houses
are built without any regard to beauty, or even regularity,
in that mean, hasty, make-shift style which characterizes
all the growing towns in Greece, except the more recent
quarters of Athens. There is a dismantled fortress on an
eminence, with crumbling earthworks and two rusty guns
— round about it may be traced by fragments the line of
the Turkish wall, and within its circuit heaps of brick and
mortar show that the town was twice as large then as now.
Indeed, it was the capital of the Morea and the residence
of the Pasha. Many places might have been found with
a milder climate, a more salubrious air, and more beautiful
environs, but none so central; and a Turkish governor
lives in the centre of his province for precisely the same

FROM TRIPOLITZA BY TEGEA TO SPARTA. 143

reason that a spider lives in the centre of his web. His
power to do mischief hangs upon as frail a thread — a
breath may sweep it away ; and he hastes, while there is
yet time, to gorge himself upon the poor, helplessly-im-
meshed creatures within his reach.

By one of those violent oscillations to which public
opinion is subject in England — a free (and easy) press
swinging the pendulum — the ardent Philhellenism of thirty
years since has given place to a pettish discontent with
the people we have helped to free, having made the
astounding discovery that they sympathize with those
who profess the same faith, the Russians, and hate the
Alahommedans who oppressed them, and still oppress
their brethren. It may be said that the Greeks ought
to see that the Western Powers are bound by good faith
and good policy not to precipitate the ruin of the Turkish
empire, and that their self-styled friends on the Neva are
not seeking the freedom of the Greek people, but the
aggrandizement of the Russian throne. On the other
hand, history and experience show that the traditions and
teaching of centuries utterly fail in indoctrinating any
people with far-reaching and prudential views. The freest
and most truthful and most enlightened nations of the
earth are purblind and passionate. Remote contingencies
and a policy of expectation neither move popular sym-
pathies nor rouse popular enthusiasm. It is unreasonable
to demand this higher wisdom from the Greeks, whose
experience of liberty and political action is so short, in
whose minds the recollection of wrongs is so fresh, for
whom bigotry is identical with patriotism, and hatred of
their nearest neighbour a Christian duty. So long as the
Turkish empire remains between them, so long will Greece

144 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

stretch out her arms to Russia as her special enemy's
special enemy ; when the barrier is down, she will learn
to dread her deliverer and avenger. Meanwhile let us not
quarrel with an inevitable result of circumstance — let us
not be unjust — let us not be harsh in exaggerating the
faults of the Greeks, nor forget or palliate the atrocities
of the rule from which the race has been in part delivered.
Before Greece was freed, and while the domination of the
Turks was as yet unchecked by Christian ambassadors and
uutempered by Christian consuls, their rule was one long
outrage on humanity. It is not too much to say that in
each Pashalik the objects and methods of government
might be summed up in the words — centralized oppression,
legalized injustice, and systematized plunder. The inhabi-
tants of the Morea had a terrible account of wrong-doing
to settle when they revolted. They were centuries in
arrear of vengeance. When we read that at the capture
of Tripolitza in 182 t the Greeks committed atrocities
such as the revolted Sepoys committed at Delhi, 1 we must

1 ' The conquerors, mad with vindictive rage, spared neither age
nor sex. Inflamed as the insurgents were hy the remembrance of a
long bondage, as well as by recent injuries, it was too natural for
them, in the first moments of victory, to wreak their vengeance on the
Moslems ; but their insatiable cruelty knew no bounds, and seemed to
inspire them with a superhuman energy for evil, which set lassitude
at defiance. Every corner was ransacked to discover new victims,
and the unhappy Jewish population (even more than the Turks objects
of fanatical hatred) expired amidst torments which we dare not
describe.' — Gordon's History of the Greek Revolution, vol. i. p. 254.

The Jews, on their part, had always been willing instruments of
Turkish oppression. Very recently they had dragged the body of the
murdered Patriarch, with foul indignities, through the streets of
Constantinople.

FROM TRIPOLITZA BY TEGEA TO SPARTA. 145

remember the real wrongs they had suffered, while those
pampered praetorians had not the shadow of a grievance
to complain of. The Greeks inflicted punishment on
their enemies, as I hope before these pages are published
we shall have inflicted punishment upon ours. Only may
the deed be done not, like "theirs, in wild wrath, but in
solemn sadness, that the sword may fall only upon guilty
heads. Else, so far as our revenge shall exceed the bounds
of justice, so surely will there come a recoil and a retri-
bution, such as befel the Greeks at Tripolitza. Years
afterwards Ibrahim vowed to leave no living thing within
the walls of the city, and endeavoured to fill up the mea-
sure of his still unsated vengeance by wreaking it on the
very stones.

Bad as the government of Greece may be, it yet offers
tolerable, and in the Morea perfect, security for life and
property. If feeble and corrupt, it is neither rapacious
nor cruel. The Morea of to-day is a very Eden compared
with the Morea of forty years ago. Everywhere fresh
land is being reclaimed from the waste, and made by irri-
gation to produce cereals, instead of salvia and cistus.
The plough is retracing furrows which have lain fallow
for centuries, and the water runs again along steep hill-
sides in rocky channels, perhaps originally hewn by the
Helot for his Spartan master. But though the govern-
ment is incomparably superior to its predecessor, and has
been vilified over-much by writers who took no account of
extenuating circumstances, it merits as little the eulogies
of the few remaining enthusiasts whose Philhellenism is
proof against disenchantment. I have been assured on
high authority that the development of agriculture has

146 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

been much thwarted by misgovernment and the fraudulent
transfer or reckless alienation of the vast estates 'which
on the expulsion of the Turks were vested in the Crown.
For instance, the land, instead of being sold in fixed lots,
has been parcelled out to suit the interests of this person
or that, so that some favoured courtier or formidable ' Pal-
licare' gets a grant of a strip commanding all the water,
which ought to have been common, and without which
the rest of the tract is valueless. Another hindrance is
said to be the vexatious mode of collecting rent and taxes.
A certain per-centage is paid upon the crop, and the corn
of each district has to be brought to the capital town, to
be threshed under the eye of the government-collector — a
system involving much cost and long delay. I remember
that the temple of Jupiter at Athens was encumbered for
weeks with piles of sheaves waiting their turn.

All this may be, indeed is, true. So much the more
credit is due to the patient and industrious people who
have achieved such results in the face of such obstacles.
The improvement is, perhaps, not what it would have
been under more favourable conditions, but it is impossible
to deny that it has been absolutely great. The traveller
cannot fail to see signs of progress everywhere, though no
statistical proof can be given. Ponqueville's estimate of
the agricultural produce of the country, prefixed to General
Gordon's Historij and compiled in 1814, must be in great
part guess-work ; and were it ever so accurate, I am not
aware that any recent tables have been published, by which
a comparison might be instituted. In default of these, we
have the annual receipts of the exchequer, and the census
periodically made and published by government authority.

FROM TRIPOLITZA BY TEOEA TO SPARTA. 147

If the revenue returns show no signs of increase now, it
must be the result of collusion between producer and col-
lector. It is a remarkable fact, for which I cannot account,
that, notwithstanding the growing prosperity of the country,
the population shows hardly any perceptible increase ; and
yet the returns of the census are not liable to the same
suspicion as those of taxable produce, for the ' Turkish
kharatch, or poll-tax, has not been continued in Greece.
In our own country we have a proof that agricultural pro-
duce may increase while the rural population is stationary
or even diminishing ; but this result is due to high farming
and large farming j neither of which can be looked for in
Greece, where, as a general rule, the peasant proprietor
cultivates his own fields.

We did not leave Tripolitza till eleven o'clock; too late,
as we found to our cost, for the day's work before us.
An hour's ride brought us to faleo-Episcope; the seat, as
the name imports, of an ancient bishopric, which was
afterwards transferred to Mouchli, a Byzantine city on
Mount Parthenium, near the direct road between Tripo-
litza and Argos. This bishopric was officially called, in
the ignorant pedantry which characterized the Byzantines,
the bishopric of A my else — a source of error the more fruitful
inasmuch as the town afterwards called Paleo-Episcope
was formerly called Nicli, and when deserted by the
Greeks, was made by the Latins the seat of one of their
sees. Buchon, in his first edition of the Greek Chronicle
of the Conquest, confounded Nicli with Mouchli, and
supposed it to be close to Sparta, commending all the
while his author's perfect knowledge of the geography of
the Morea, and not giving a hint of the insuperable

L 2

148 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

difficulties introduced by his own interpretation. As the
Latins never elsewhere in Greece gave to one of their
sees a name preoccupied by the Greeks, it is probable
that the Greek see had been removed to Mouchli, either
before or immediately after the Latin conquest of Nicli.
It was besieged and taken by Guillaume de Champlitte, in
1205. The walls, about two-thirds of a mile in circuit,
are, as described in the Chronicle, very strong with
cement. After the completion of the conquest it was
the seat of one of twelve barons, among whom, in
imitation of Charlemagne and the Douzepairs, the Prince
of Achaia divided the peninsula. Here, too, the Frank
ladies met for counsel and comfort when the news came
of the death or capture of their husbands at the battle of
Pelagonia, in 1259.

The ruins of Nicli stand on part of the site of
ancient Tegea, of which not so much as a ruin remains.
Various fragments, however, and inscriptions found here
and at a church about a mile off, called Aio Sosti,
leave no doubt of the fact. All around is the fair
plain, which a lying oracle promised to the Spartans. 1
The general level of the ground is lower than at Tripo-
litza, but diversified by dwarf hills, or rather undulations,
which must have facilitated drainage, and must have
freed the Tegeans from the fear of the complete submer-
sion which accident or malice could inflict upon their
neighbours at Mantinea. The soil is alluvial and deep ;
so fertile indeed, that it was worth while to cultivate it
even in the immediate vicinity of a Pasha. Hence the

1 Herodotus, i. 27.

FROM TRIPOLITZA BY TEGEA TO SPARTA. 149

entire disappearance of the old city. In the expanse of
green corn-fields not a fragment appears above ground of
the large and populous place which for so many centuries
occupied the site. The church of Paleo-Episcope itself
must be an interesting ruin to those who are occupied
with ecclesiastical and not classical antiquities. It is
anterior to the Frank conquest, and of course in the
shape of a Greek cross, and has had four domed aisles,
and four cupolas at the corners. The walls are very
strong. Three courses of brick with thick layers of
mortar intervene between each course of stones. In
them are embedded not only Pagan fragments, but
Christian also, showing that there has been an earlier
church on the spot. These latter consist of marble, with
crosses and other emblems, a leaf, seven stars, &c, carved
in the rude low relief which is characteristic of Byzantine
work in all periods — in strong contrast to some portions
of an Hellenic frieze with foliage, executed in the bold
free manner indicative of the best times. There are also
some triglyphs and guttse, all in white marble, which may
have been part of the temple of Athene, and are certainly
relics of the ancient city. Some small Doric columns,
fourteen inches in diameter, may be referred to the
same period, while a row of unfluted columns built into
the wall probably belonged to the former church, which
doubtless got its abundant marbles from the ruins of
Tegea. In one of the aisles I found a slab of marble
twenty-two inches long by ten wide, with the following
inscription nearly perfect : ^wmpi /ecu ot/ctory avroKparopi
ASptavip OXvuttho. It seems that Hadrian had included
Tegea among the cities which in his Philhellenic and anti-

150 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

quarian zeal he restored arid adorned, and the Tegeans
repaid him by bestowing upon him the title of ' Founder/
which belonged to Tegeates, and the epithets of ' Saviour'
and ' Olympian/ which were the attributes of Zeus.
There is also a cippus, with the inscription : kuWikoi

The most famous of the buildings of Tegea was the
temple of Athene- Alea, the sanctuary attached to which
was hedged round by an immemorial reverence, which made
it inviolable. Hence in history we frequently find that
detected criminals and unlucky politicians fled hither for
refuge. The epithet ' Alea ' probably means ' Defender/
' Protector/ though the word had been long obsolete, and
Avas supposed to come, after the summary fashion of
Greek etymologies, from one Aleus, the original founder.

There was a city near Stymphalus called Alea, where
Athene was worshipped under the same invocation. In
this case the city probably derived its name, and perhaps
its existence, from the temple. 1 There was also a temple
and sanctuary of the same name near Sparta.- The most
ancient of the temples at Tegea had been superseded by a
new and beautiful structure, which was burnt down in the
year 394 b.c, 3 when the Tegeans employed Scopas of
Paros, a famous sculptor as well as architect, to rebuild it.
It was ' by far the most splendid of all the temples of
Peloponnese, both in size and construction/ By f con-

1 Paus. viii. 23, 1. * Xen. Sell. vi. c. 5.

vcrrepa) e'rei rrjs eKTrjs <a\ ivevrjKocrTrjs '0\v/j.Tnd8os. i. e. ill the
second year of the ninety-sixth olympiad, not ' first year.' as Colonel
Leake translates it. — Paus. viii. 4^, 3.

FROM TRIPOLITZA BY TEGEA TO SPARTA. 151

struction ' is meant both materials and workmanship, as
may be inferred from a passage where the author says,
the temple of Bassse excelled in both these points all
others except that of Athene at Tegea.

Now, as the temple of Bassse was of the finest lime-
stone, with a frieze whose material may be ascertained by
a visit to the British Museum, the temple at Tegea had
probably not only its frieze, but its columns also, of
white marble, the wall of the cella and the roof being
of stone. Had it been all marine, Pausanias would
scarcely have omitted his familiar words : XiBov Xevkov.
Marble seems to have been no rarity in the Tegean
temples ; but none of the fragments of columns hitherto
brought to light are on a scale large enough to have
belonged to the peristyle of Athene. The words of Pau-
sanias leave it ambiguous what style they were. He says, 1
' The first order of its columns is Dorian, the next Co-
rinthian, and there stand also outside the temple columns
of Ionic workmanship/ Colonel Leake infers, from these
words, that the columns within the cella were of the Doric
order, ' though for what reason Pausanias could have
described this order as ' the first ' it seems difficult to
understand; by the words kir\ rourw — ' above this order/
he probably meant an upper range of small columns sup-
porting the roof, like those still existing at Paestum/
The words zktoq tov vaov, being elsewhere used to describe
the peristyle of the temple at Olympia, Colonel Leake
supposes must mean the same here.

1 6 p.ev 8rj irpaiTos icrriv avra Koafios rav Kiovatv Aapios 6 Se eVi
tovto) KopivBios' ecTTTjKacri 8e <a\ euros roi vaov Kioves ipyaa'ias rrjs
'Idwav. — Paus. viii. 45, 4.

152

NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

The first difficulty, I think, is utterly insurmountable ;
in the second place, the words kir\ tovtw, taken in conjunc-
tion with TrpCoToq, mean, not l above/ ' on the top of/ but
' next in order/ as Colonel Leake before translated them.
They are used a hundred times in the same sense by the
author. The whole difficulty, as it seems to me, would
be removed by the alteration of a single letter in the
text. If we read svtoq, ' inside/ for £ktoq, ' outside/
all is clear. Then the orders follow in succession as they
presented themselves to the eyes of the visitor. The outside
peristyle was Doric ; the columns in antis before the
Pronaos were Corinthian, and the interior columns sup-
porting the ceiling were Ionic.

To return for a moment from this conjectural temple
to extant reality, the old church which I have described
stands upon an artificial basement of stone, which appears
to be curvilinear not rectangular. Is it possible that this
is part of the cavea of the theatre ? A few hours' work
at excavation would ascertain the fact.

Leaving Tegea, we found the baggage waiting for us
at the entrance of the defile called Saranda Potamous,
or ' the Forty Rivers/ ( Forty ' is commonly used to
designate some indefinitely large number, and ' Saranda '
is derived from the Greek TearnpaKovra, by the sup-
pression of the first syllable, the coalescence of the third
and fourth, and the conversion of / after n into d.
This last is a frequent change in modern Greek. They
say, for instance, pe.nde, not pente, for ' five/ The f forty
rivers ' here mean the many streams which in winter
run down from the hills to feed the main river, the
ancient Alpheus, which, at the entrance to the plain of

FROM TRIPOLITZA BY TEGEA TO SPARTA. 153

Tegea, 1 falls into one of the chasms so frequent in this
region. Pausanias takes occasion here to relate the sub-
sequent fortunes of this wonderful stream. He says, that
it, or rather he, rose again at Alea, joined the Eurotas in
another subterranean tour, parted company, and rising
again, flowed into the sea by Elis, ' whence, undeterred
by the Adriatic and the wide and wild ocean, he swims
across, and in Ortygia before Syracuse proves himself to
be Alpheus, and mingles his stream with Arethusa.'
How he proved his identity does not appear; but it was
such a proof as to leave no doubt on the mind of the
narrator. In flood-time the chasm is not capacious
enough to receive the torrents which then inundate the
neighbouring fields. When we passed, however, there
was but a scanty thread of water, so that the bed of the
river was for many miles our road, for some distance rough
with rocks, where the defile was narrow and the banks
high overhead ; but further on changing to a smooth ex-
panse of sand as the banks receded and beetling crags
gave place to corn-growing slopes with tracts of pasture-
ground above and here and there a white hamlet far
away on the mountain side.

In about two hours we reached Krya Vrysis, where, at
the junction of two river beds, is a cold fountain (icpva.
fipvaig), which gives the place its name. A solitary

1 Pausanias's words are e'y to -rrehlov narehv to Teyearucop (viii. 54,
2). The genuineness of this passage has heen doubted by Colonel
Leake, as I think, without sufficient cause. The Karafiodpou is situated
just where the mountains end and the comparatively level country
begins : irebiov is here used in that wider sense, and the name of the
chief town in the neighbourhood is naturally given to the district.

154 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

house stands by the spring. On the bank of the stream
are some huge trunks of plane-trees all charred by fires,
which in wantonness or mischief have been kindled,
inside. This is probably the spot which Pausanias calls
Symbola — Confluence — Coblentz. After staying here an
hour for rest and refreshment, we remounted and bent
our course up a valley to the left hand ; after which we
came to a wild open country with scattered oaks and
plane-trees ; then passed through a narrow defile, aptly
called ' to steno/ where we thought we discerned the
wheel-marks of an ancient road. About sunset we came
to some beautiful park-like slopes of green grass with
clumps of trees and shrubs, principally arbutus and ilex.
It soon became dark, and in the glen through which our
path lay not a ray of starlight penetrated. "We felt,
though we could not see, that the path was steep and
broken. There was of course nothing for it but to let
bur horses grope their way as best they might. On such
occasions man is forced to acknowledge the superiority of
the quadruped, whose reasoning faculties have not been
developed to the prejudice of his instinct. Thanks to
this instinct, we came at last to the khan of Krevata, a
lonely house on the hill-side, where we were to pass the
night. The c irrationals ' and the uninstinctives, except
myself and my friend, were accommodated on the ground-
floor; the upper-floor, accessible by a ladder and trap-door,
was reserved for us. This chamber was provided with
a flat stone by way of fireplace, but no chimney. A
square hole in the wall served both for chimney and
window. The night being cold, and the walls damp,
we ventured on the experiment of a fire of green

FROM TRIPOLITZA BY TEGEA TO SPARTA. 155

wood, which added to the other ' agrements ' of the
apartment eddying volumes of pungent smoke.

Next morning, as we had but a short journey before us,
we were in no hurry to start, our attendants least of all.
I sat on the hill-side for an hour in the sun, whose warmth
in the early morning and at that elevation was very plea-
sant. Through the valley looking eastward ran a narrow
stream, the ancient (Enus, along a broad, gravelly bed
fringed with plane-trees. On the level ground by the
banks, and on the lower slopes of Mount Parnon beyond,
were green corn-fields mixed with red, newly-ploughed fal-
lows; and higher up on the hill-sides pasture grounds dotted
with white flocks (from which the sound of many tinkling
sheep-bells came borne upon the wind), interspersed with
thickets of holly, lentisk, arbutus, and the yellow broom,
and broken by pinnacles of grey rock. Where the water-
courses swept down to the valley there ran as it were a
stream of richer, greener foliage, thickening, widening,
and deepening as it descended. We were loath to leave
so beautiful a place, even for the greater beauties in store
for us. At eight o'clock we set off. Our path, constantly
ascending, wound through a wood, or rather shrubbery,
with fresh green leaves ' fulfilled with life and prodigal of
song/ Now the branches interlacing seemed to bar the
way, now the thicket opened and left a green glade all
blazing with scarlet anemones ; while the winding path
was recessed into many a shady covert starred with shy
woodland flowers on which the dew lay till noon. A
jubilant clamour of singing birds — nightingale, thrush,
linnet — mixed with notes that were unfamiliar, rans:
round us on all sides. All sights and sounds reminded us

156 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

that we were in the prime of 'scarlet-blossomed spring/ 1
and recalled and justified the fond epithets which all poets
of all ages have heaped upon the youth of the year.

After attaining the summit of the pass, and as one
descends through winding paths on the western side,
beauties of quite another kind present themselves. Instead
of a succession of forest glades and alleys — dainty vignettes
— we have before us a wide prospect of mountain scenery
— a panorama on a scale of magnificence which, except
among the high Alps, cannot be paralleled in Europe.
And seen in the early spring, when the summits and
ridges between are still covered with a continuous robe of
snow, Taygetus presents to the eye and the imagination a
picture which loses nothing by a comparison with the
recollections of Mont Blanc or the Oberland of Berne.
From the main chain, here visible almost from one end
to the other, huge masses project at regular intervals,
descending by a succession of precipices to the plain —
like a great Titanic wall flanked with buttresses and cum-
bered about its base with immemorial ruin. A rare ver-
dure clothes the hollows and the slopes between, and at
the foot stretches the plain of Sparta, green with mulberry,
olive, maize, and vine, seamed here and there with red scars, 2
the crumbling earthbanks between which flow the Eurotas
and its tributaries.

I find from my journal that this morning's ride, which

1 (poiviKavdenov rjpos aKpa. Pindar, Pyth. iv. 64.
This helps one to the true signification of the Homeric koiXtj
AaKebaifxcov K^rcoeVo-a, and confirms Buttmann's view, that ' Lace-
dsemon' in the Iliad (ii. 581), and in the Odyssey (iv. 1) refers to
the country, not the city.

FROM TRIPOLITZA BY TEGEA TO SPARTA. 157

fills a large space in my memory, so crowded as it was
with a variety of delightful impressions, only occupied two
hours. We reached the bank of the Eurotas at ten o'clock,
and halted for breakfast near the spot where it is spanned
by a steep and narrow bridge of stone constructed, I believe,
by the Venetians. The stream is clear, and flows over a
level, sandy bed, but so shallow that it is difficult to
find a place to bathe. The deep banks are fringed with
planes, alders, and oleanders. At a little distance on
the other side run walls of red and grey rock with black
weather stains. The steep slope below is dotted with
wild olive-trees, and clothed with salvias and other
shrubs, among which a flock of goats is clambering and
browsing. Our breakfast table was laid in an abandoned
quarry, where the rock still bore traces of the pickaxe.
From this place to Sparta it is only an hour's ride.

CHAPTER X.

SPARTA.

rPHE modern Sparta, occupying a small portion of the
-*- site of the ancient city, is of no older date than the
modern kingdom of Greece. In the Turkish times the
principal place of the district was Mistra, at the foot of
Mount Taygetus, three miles to the westward — a far hetter
position in a military point of view. When the success of
the revolution had freed the country from the chronic fear
and distrust which attend on foreign rulers, the Greek
government were at liberty to indulge their classical pre-
dilections, and to make a new Sparta capital of a new
Laconia. The present town, like its ancient namesake in
its best days, has no fortifications. The old Sparta owed
its security to the presence of defenders, the new to the
absence of assailants. The main street is of great width,
and might serve an imperial rather than a provincial
capital, which makes the low mean houses on either side
look lower and meaner still. There is a church dignified
by the title of cathedral, and an episcopal palace on a most
appropriate scale of Spartan and apostolic simplicity ; a
school which holds 144 boys, and an incipient silk factory.
We had a letter of introduction to one of the principal
inhabitants, an eirenodikos — i.e., justice of peace, or rather
juge de paix, for the judicial as well as administrative

SPARTA. 159

system of Greece is imitated from the French. He was
profuse in civilities and attentions of all sorts. He in-
sisted upon our going to his house, where he gave us jam
and coffee ; then escorted us round the town ; then gave us
jam and coffee again j and, finally, carried us off to call on
the bishop, where, besides jam and coffee, chibouques were
brought, after the Turkish fashion. The older Greeks still
adhere from habit to this and other Oriental usages — the
younger men ape European ways. The prelate was a
venerable old man ; not the less venerable, perhaps, from
the poverty of his dress and the bareness of his dwelling.
He received us in an old black cap and a tattered brown
coat lined with moth-eaten fur.

He asked us many questions, particularly as to the in-
comes of the English hierarchy. We were half-ashamed
to tell him. However, through his own blunder or that
of the justice of peace, who acted as interpreter, he mis-
took pounds sterling for drachmas, so the sum mentioned
did not move his astonishment or envy so very much. In
the staircase of the episcopal residence is an inscription
purporting that one Memmius repaired at his own cost the
temple of the Dioscuri Soteres ; — perhaps the temple out-
side the city, where, as Xenophon says, 1 the 300 hoplites
lay in ambush on the day when, by their sudden attack,
they compelled the Thebans under Epaminondas to retreat.
If the Dioscuri were worshipped there under the title of the
Soteres, ' Preservers/ it would be a reason, and to ancient
Greeks a very strong reason, for choosing that position.
Their history is full of instances proving that superstitious

Hell.

160 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

feelings constantly influenced strategy. The Athenians,
who had just experienced at Marathon the manifest
favour of Hercules, whose precinct they had occupied,
when they hastened back to Athens to defend the city,
stationed themselves about the temple of the same hero at
Cynosarges.

It is possible, 1 too, that the title msy have been added
in the ritual to the name Dioscuri in gratitude for the
service rendered in that season of mortal peril to Sparta —
the first time her women had ever seen the fires of an in-
vading foe — as Theseus was said to have set up a statue
of Artemis Soteira at Trcezen, after his safe return from
Crete.

The site of ancient Sparta is an irregular plateau five
or six miles in circumference, and forty or fifty feet above
the plain through which the Eurotas flows on the north-
east side. On the south-east side it is bounded by a
rivulet which joins the Eurotas, and on the north-west it
is overlooked by some rough mountain ground, the ex-
tremity of one of the spurs of Taygetus. On the plateau
are several ' uneven and hilly places/ to use the words of
Polybius f the hilly places towards the north, the uneven
places towards the south. The level space between lies
east and west in the direction of its length. Of the hilly
places, the most central is by far the largest and the most
irregular. Another hill to the east of it looks over the
plain of the Eurotas, and a third to the north occupies

1 aarrfpes is, however, a familiar epithet of ' the great twin
Brethren,' and it is applied to them in the Selena of Euripides, with
perhaps an especial reference to their worship at Sparta (line 1500).
2 Polyb. b. v. c. 16.

BPARTA. 161

the remotest corner of the plateau towards the spur of
Taygetus before mentioned. The modern town occupies
sloping ground on which lay the outskirts of the
ancient Sparta, towards the south ; the sides of the hills
and the intervening level are covered with corn, deep and
luxuriant in April, interrupted here and there by heaps of
ruin. The principal ruin is the cavea of the theatre ex-
cavated in the side of the largest hill. The stones are not
so massive as in some other structures of the same kind,
but the masonry is excellent ; the theatre itself must have
been one of the largest in Greece, and there is every
reason to believe that it dates from the flourishing times
of Sparta. Under the Roman Empire Sparta would not
have needed such a place of entertainment, and could not
have afforded to build it. The stage wall has entirely dis-
appeared, and in its place are the ruins of what seems to
be partly Roman partly Byzantine wall — the fragments
of a continuous line of fortification encircling the largest
of the hills. This fortification can be traced in its
irregular course nearly all round, as it follows the natural
windings of the hill. In some places it is built on Hel-
lenic foundations, in others pillars and fragments of marble
are mingled with the bricks and mortar, thus proving that
it was executed after the city was ruined and decayed.
Colonel Leake attributes it to the time of Julian. There
is, however, some reason to doubt whether, in any work of
his, fragments of antiquity would have been so unscrupu-
lously used. It bears, I think, the appearance of a work
of necessity, hastily constructed with such materials as
came to hand, to provide against an urgent danger rather
than to indulge a sentimental fancy. It is such a work

162 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

as might have been constructed by Roman soldiers, acting
under the orders of Valentinian, to protect the scanty
remnants of the Spartans from the Gothic invaders.
Julian would have restored the ruined temples and
theatres, and not used their materials in a military work.
Indeed, the Chronicle of the French Conquest gives us
reason to believe that the greater part of the wall is of
much more recent date, coeval, perhaps, with that of Nidi.
Like Nicli, Sparta, or, as it was more commonly called,
Lacedsemonia, was a fortified and inhabited town when the
French invaders came into the Morea in the beginning of
the thirteenth century, and was, like it, the seat of a
bishopric. The Bishop of Lacedsemonia made his sub-
mission to the conquerors ; and when the country was
parcelled out according to the system of feudal tenure, he
received four fiefs, the appanage of a lesser baron. The
town is called, by a curious corruption, La Cremonie, in
the French version of the Chronicle. Mistra was built by
Guillaume de Villehardouin, whose attention had been
attracted to the greater natural strength of the position,
in 1250. It was ceded by him to the emperor, as part of
his ransom, after the disaster of Pelagonia; and the in-
habitants of Lacedsemonia, preferring to live under the
protection of their own countryman, removed in a body
thither. Such is the history of medieval Sparta, which
was as yet unknown when Colonel Leake's Tour was
written.

Immediately above the theatre is a long narrow line of
building, which has perhaps served for barracks. Elsewhere,
on the same hill, is another fort and ruined church of later
construction ; and at the further extremity the remains of

SPARTA. 163

a circus — one of the smallest extant — also a Roman work.
At the circular end and along one side are the remains of
the brick arches which supported the seats ; on the other
side there is only a wall, with buttresses built along the
edge of the hill, having no remains of arches or seats inside.
Indeed, the circus is so narrow, that it would scarcely ad-
mit of any. This wall is not quite parallel with the line of
arches, and I conclude, therefore, that it was built at a later
time, and intended, like the wall before the theatre, simply
for a military purpose. Either the circus never was finished,
or one side of it was destroyed to make way for the wall
of defence. The remaining seats would, considering the
size of the town, be amply sufficient for the spectators of
the athletic games of a Roman garrison. The direction of
the wall which joins the circular end seems to have been
determined by the cella of a temple, part of which, if I
mistake not, is actually built into it. On the height to
the east are remains of medieval walls, and an artificial
circular mound on the summit. Opposite the depression
between these hills are the ruins of a bridge over the
Eurotas, and on the plain below, some fragments appa-
rently of a temple and its peribolus. Among the corn T
saw three huge stones, two upright and one resting upon
the top, like a rude doorway or like a Celtic cromlech. In
Colonel Leake's time there were more of these singular
erections. They cannot, I think, be supposed to be frag-
ments of any Hellenic buildings, but are more probably
memorials of the dead set up by the Sclavonian immi-
grants in the Middle Ages. In the valley near the centre
of the old city is an Hellenic building called ' The Tomb
of Leonidas/ though it is too far from the theatre to have

m 2

164 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

the slightest claim to the name. 1 It is, in fact, a small
temple, or heroum, about thirty feet in length, of great
antiquity, to judge from the enormous size of the stones
composing it. On one side there are only three stones
in a course. I measured one of them, and found it to be
fourteen feet long, three and a half feet deep, and three
and a half feet thick. It has had an opisthodomus com-
municating by a side door with the main building. It
appears also to have had a peribolus, and was probably
used for a church in later times.

Neither this nor any other ruin can be identified with
any of the buildings mentioned by Pausanias, except the
theatre. Indeed, as we have seen, the existing ruins for
the most part date from a time subsequent to his visit.
Neither are we much helped by the incidental notices of
Spartan topography which Colonel Leake has so diligently
gathered from other authors. We have no data whereon
to constitute, with any certainty, a map of the old city.
It is hardly worth while to guess at a riddle of which the
answer can never be known ; but I must say that Colonel
Leake's conjectural map might be made in several points
more plausible; at least so I thought, standing map in
hand looking over the ground from the height above the
theatre. 2

First, as to the Agora. Pausanias says, ' As one goes
from the Agora towards the west is a cenotaph in honour

1 Pausanias, iii. 14, I — T<i(pos Kevos BpacriSq ru> TeXXi'Soy TT€7roiJ]Tai.
dne^ec Se ov ttoXv tov rdcpov to diarpov. I shall refer to this passage
again.

2 The map will be found at the end of this volume.

SPARTA. 165

of Brasidas, and not far from the tomb is the theatre/
From these words Colonel Leake draws the inference that
the Agora actually occupied the principal hill on the side
of which the theatre is situated. Now, the first requisite
for an agora, or general market-place, is that it should be
not only central but easy of access. Here, on the con-
trary, there would be a steep ascent on all sides. Neither
is the ground assigned level enough for its purpose, or
large enough to accommodate, beside the requisite vacant
space, the temples, stoa, public offices, statues, &c, which
Pausanias enumerates. Again he says, 1 that from the
Agora led a street called Aphetse, which tradition reported
to be the race-course in which the suitors of Penelope
contended for the hand of the lady, Icarius having assigned
the prize to the swiftest of foot. Would tradition have
ever fixed upon this street if it had not been like other
race-courses, smooth and level ground? Moreover, 2 on
another side of the Agora, at some distance, it would ap-
pear, was a statue, from which the suitors of Penelope
were said to have started. The street, therefore, leading
from this statue to the Agora was also on the same level
as the other. Hence it is impossible that the Agora could
have been where Colonel Leake places it. I, with him,
infer, from the words of Pausanias first quoted, that the
western end of the Agora could not have been far from the
theatre, as only one monument is mentioned on the way ;
but this condition will be quite satisfied if we suppose the
Agora to have been at the foot of the great hill at its
south and south-eastern side. This position will be more

1 Paus. iii. 12, I. * lb. iii. 13, 4.

166 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

central, more spacious, more accessible, more in accord-
ance with the general usage of the Greeks (who, so far as
we know, put their market-places on the top of the hill),
and will satisfy all the conditions required by the text of
Pausanias.

Secondly, with regard to the Acropolis. * The Acro-
polis of the Lacedaemonians/ says Pausanias, 1 ' does not
stand out to a pre-eminent height, like the Cadmaea of
Thebes and the Argive Larissa ; but there being other hills
also in the city, that which reaches the greatest elevation
they call Acropolis/

' This/ says Colonel Leake, ' is rather a doubtful de-
scription, as there is little or no apparent difference
between the height of the great hill and of that at the
northern extremity of the site. Upon farther examina-
tion, however, it is seen that the only part of the great
hill equal in height to the other is the back of the theatre,
which could not have been the Acropolis. There is some
reason to think also that the natural height of this hill
has been increased by the theatre itself and its ruins, so
that the expression of Pausanias may still have been just,
as applied to the northern hill ; which, moreover, being
separated from the rest and at one angle of the site, was
better adapted for an acropolis than any other/ 2

I differ in several points from the passage just quoted.
To my eye the northern hill is considerably lower than
the great hill; if any other hill on this ground can dis-
pute the claim of the latter to be called Acropolis, it is
the eastern, which Colonel Leake calls Issorium. I do

1 Paus. iii. 17, 2. 2 Leake's 3£orea, vol. i. p. 173.

SPARTA.

167

not think that the height has been increased by the theatre
and its ruins, nor do I see why a hill could not be an
acropolis because it has a theatre built at the side. The
theatre of Dionysus was on the side of the Athenian
Acropolis. Neither does the situation of the northern
hill fit it for an acropolis; it is overlooked by a higher
hill to the northward, and from its summit scarcely any
part of the city would be visible. Moreover, neither on
it nor on the eastern hill would there be room for the
temples and statues recorded by Pausanias ; I conclude,
therefore, that the great hill above the Agora was what
they called Acropolis. Observe, too, that it was not in
those old days a fortress in itself, but only called Acropolis
in imitation of other cities. The. fact that the Romans
afterwards, as we have reason to believe, chose this hill
for their fortification, and that it was beyond doubt the
site of the medieval city, shows that it was the most com-
manding position of the three.

There is no evidence that the place called Platanistas,
where the Spartan youth fought in such a savage manner, 1
was where Colonel Leake has placed it, at the junction of
the little river Trypiotiko with the Eurotas. It may have
been an island in the Eurotas, or even in the bed of the
other stream ; neither is there any proof that the Dromos
was adjacent to or near it. The mention of one place of
athletic exercise naturally leads Pausanias to speak of
another ; just as, in his description of Athens, an associa-
tion of ideas leads him from the statue of Ptolemy in the

1 Lucian, Anacharsis, c. 35.— Paus. iii. 14, 8— avro Se to xo>piou
evda rols e(f)Tifiois pax^o-Bai Kadeo~njKe, kvk\w pev "Evpmos irepie'xei
nara ravra Kai ii vqcrov 6aXaao-a, e(po8oi Se eVi yecpvpcbv elai.

1G8 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

Agora to those of other Egyptian kings before the Odeum,
leaping over half the city. That the Dromos was not
close to the Eurotas is, I think, proved by Pausanias
(iii. 15, 4), which shows that there was no impediment to
a free exit from it towards the east. 1

Pjtane. — ' Herodotus shows that the theatre was in the
quarter of Pitane ; Plutarch mentions it as being the most
desirable and fashionable quarter of Sparta, like the Colyttus
at Athens and the Craneum at Corinth ; and Pindar de-
scribes Pitane as being at the ford of the Eurotas. These
authorities seem to indicate that the Pitanatse inhabited
all the part of Sparta adjacent to the Agora, and extended
to the river about the centre of its course in front of Sparta,
for here was probably in all times its most frequented pas-
sage.''

1 There is a passage in the Helena of Euripides (205—209) in
which allusion seems to he made both to the Hippodrome and to the
Platanistas.

Kdcrropos re crvyyovov re

bihvpoyeves ayakpa irarpiSos

d(paves dcpaves ImroKpoTa XfKome 8dire8a

yvpvdcrid re bovaicoevTos

~Evpcora, veaviav irovov.

If, indeed, there were any other evidence for the proximity of the
Dromos to the river, we might suppose that, as there were two
gymnasia included within it (Paus. iii. 14, 6), the words yvpvdaia
Eiipara referred to the Dromos ; but, taking into consideration the
concluding words, the former hypothesis seems the more probable.
But, as I have before said, we must not look for topographical, or
other minutiae in any ancient poet. Castor and Pollux were the
especial patrons of athletic sports : their statues, according to Pausa-
nias, stood at the entrance to the Dromos, where they were known
under the title dcpeTrjpiot, ' the starters,' hence it is possible that the
word ayaXpa may be used significantly by the poet.

SrARTA. 169

With regard to this point Colonel Leake's map is at
variance with his text, for it represents Pitane as separated
from the river by Liranse and the Messoatae.

City Walls. — It was the pride and boast of the ancient
Spartans that their city needed no bulwarks. "What the
Irish poet fondly dreams of his O'Briens and O'Donoghoos
might be said with sober truth of the kings of Sparta : —

O for the kings of former time !

for the pomp that crowned them !
When the hearts and the hands of free-born men

Were all the ramparts round them.

Such was their state when Thucydides wrote in a well-
known passage (b. l. c. 10), which may be freely trans-
lated thus : — ' If the city of the Lacedaemonians were
destroyed, and only its temples and the foundations of its
buildings left, remote posterity would greatly doubt whether
their power were ever equal to their renown ; yet they are
actually in occupation of two parts out of five of the Pelo-
ponnese, and at the head of the whole peninsula and many
external allies ; nevertheless, as their city is not continuous
and compact, and has no costly monuments, sacred or civil,
but is divided into villages after the old fashion of Greece,
it would seem to fall short of its fame/

The villages were probably five in number, Pitane,
Limnse, Messose, Cynosoura, and vEgeis, each possessing
a district abutting on the Agora as a common centre, and
radiating from that point far out into the country. Their
temples and public buildings, except the really national
buildings, the senate house, ' Skias,' theatre, and sanctuary
of Athene-Chalkioecus, were erected not by a common
effort, but by each { village' for its own use; and were,

170

NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

therefore, not on the scale of magnificence which distin-
guished the temples and buildings at Athens. They were
also scattered over a wide surface, and many of those
which Pausanias mentions were probably outside the walls.
It does not appear that there was any attempt to fortify
the town till the invasion of Demetrius Poliorcetes (293
B.C.), when they dug deep ditches and erected strong pali-
sades, and built a wall to defend the most assailable points, 1
which defences stood them again in good stead whenPyrrhus
invaded Laconia (b.c 272). These extemporized works were
converted by the tyrant Nabis into a fortification of the
strongest kind, which was completed between the attack
of Titus Quinctius Flamininus (b.c 195) and that of Phi-
lopoemen (b.c 192), and was razed to the ground by the
latter after the death of the tyrant. The banished Lace-
daemonians appealed to Rome, were reinstated and allowed
to rebuild their wall, now become a necessary guarantee
of their independence. This is probably the wall which
was in existence when Pausanias visited the city (about
a.d. 170). He twice mentions the wall, but without
giving any indication of its course. Not a fragment now
remains. It was probably of unbaked brick, except in
such parts as might be exposed to inundation. The brick-
work, if neglected, would soon crumble away in sun and
shower, and the stone-work was very likely used in the
construction of the late Roman work which is still extant
about the edges of the central hill. I suppose that in the
early times, when ' Sparta' was rather a general name for
several neighbouring villages than a city, the houses would

1 Paus. i. 13, 5. Cf. iii. c. 8, 3. Livy, xxxiv. 27; xxxv. 30.
Leake, p. 179.

SPAItTA. 171

be separate, and each surrounded by its garden or paddock 1 ;
but when it became necessary for security to dwell within
walls, the houses would be continuous, and Sparta differ
in no wise from the common type of a Greek polis. The
laws of Lycurgus, so opposed to the examples and influences
of neighbouring people, became practically inoperative soon
after the time of Thucydides, although an outward husk
of formal observance, no doubt, remained long after the
core was gone. From Pausanias's account we see that the
Spartans had been infected with the prevailing taste for
architectural display. In his day the remarks of Thucy-
dides would have been no longer applicable; and if his
prediction respecting the comparative grandeur of the
ruins of Athens is fulfilled to our eyes, it is because fate
has dealt so much more hardly with the one than with
the other. Of course Athens stood at all times pre-
eminent in splendour ; but Sparta probably was about the
commencement of our era not inferior to Argos, Thebes,
Corinth, or any other city of Greece. Even in the time
of Polybius, before any regular fortifications were built,
the population, probably much diminished, had gathered
also for security within narrower limits (v. 22). He
describes the shape of the city as circular, and says that
its circumference was forty-eight stades, equal to six Ro-
man miles. If we take for the limits of the then city the
winding Eurotas on the one side, the Trypiotiko on the
other, the edge of the plateau looking westward, and the
deep ravine to the north, the shape of the city would be
approximately circular, and the length of the circumference
nearly forty-eight stades. There is always a tendency
among men to exaggerate the size, population, and im-

172 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

portance of their own city j and Polybius probably derived
his information from some oral, not written, source. If
he judged by the eye, we must remember that, in esti-
mating a distance crowded with many different objects,
the natural tendency is to over-estimate — in judging of
distance by sea along a shore or on waste ground, the ten-
dency is to under-estimate. The ditch and palisade, I
conceive, embraced this circle, and the walls subsequently
built were probably coincident with them on all sides but
that facing the Eurotas, where I conceive that they fol-
lowed the line of the higher ground. I thought it, when
on the spot, exceedingly improbable that they ever ex-
tended, as in Colonel Leake's map, beyond the Trypiotiko.
The ground on the right bank is much lower and much
less defensible than that on the left. An expression used
by Pausanias tends to the conclusion that the side of
Sparta towards Amyclse, the side of which we are speaking,
stood on high ground. He says, ' As you go down from
Sparta to Amyclse' (hi. 18, 4). Now, if the walls were
where Colonel Leake has placed them, persons would have
had to 'go up' from Sparta to Aniyclae. These walls were
probably much decayed in Pausanias's time, as he only
casually mentions them, and does not stop to define
the position of this or that building as being within or
without.

Many temples (as that of the Dioscuri and Poseidon-
Gaiouchos) were probably without, in their old positions,
left, when the scattered ' villagers ' betook themselves to
the city, to the protection of their own sanctity. The
Dromos, like the Hippodrome, was, I suppose, outside, as
was also the Platanistas.

SPARTA. 173

Remembering the passage in Thucydides, and also the
Spartan affectation of simplicity, one is surprised at first
to find in Pausanias so long a catalogue of artistic and
architectural works. But the vast majority of these Avorks
in their then state dated from a time subsequent to the
Peloponnesian war, when the rigid rules of the old Spartans
had given way, like the tenets of the modern Quakers, to
the irresistible attraction of those general thoughts, habits,
feelings, manners which we designate by that convenient
cant phrase ' the spirit of the age/

CHAPTER XL

XEROKAMPO — A DIGRESSION.

A PRJL 24. Leaving Sparta at 7 o'clock, we rode
-*-*- across the plain to Xerokarnpo, our object being to
visit a bridge which Colonel Mure in his Tour in Greece
maintains to be a relic of the heroic ages. Groves of
olive and mulberry alternate with stony torrent beds and
wildernesses of yellow flowers. All the soil of the plain
has been deposited in the course of long ages by the
torrents which issue from the ravines of Taygetus; hence
it is full of stones and hard to work, especially along the
base of the hill, thus bearing out the description of Euri-
pides — c A poor land, plenty of arable, but not easy to till/
Our friend the Eirenodikos, however, vehemently denied
the truth of this description, not knowing the ancient
authority we were quoting. ' II ne nous manque que les
bras/ he said.

Along the Eurotas, I believe, the land is richer ; and
in the lap of the mountains are many tracts of exuberant
fertility. The plain itself has no doubt now a richer ap-
pearance than formerly, owing to the introduction of the
mulberry, which takes kindly to the soil, and hides all
show of barrenness with the sheen of its fresh green
leaves. About halfway is a scattered village called Skla-
vokhori, which, on the faith of certain inscriptions found

XEROKAMPO A DIGRESSION. 17"

here, has been supposed to occupy the site of the ancient
Amyclse. The hypothesis has received the official sanc-
tion of government, and the village has been again bap-
tized by the classical name. It is, however, too distant
from Sparta. Amyclse was only twenty stades from the
city j 1 Sklavokhori must be more than twice as far.
Colonel Leake has fixed upon a hill and church called
Aia Kyriake, where he found a stone with the letters
' AMY' inscribed, as the probable position of the old
city. This, however, is also too distant from the walls of
Sparta. On the other hand, there does not appear to be,
at the required distance, any conspicuous and isolated
eminence, such as the earlier inhabitants of Greece selected
for their cities. It is not impossible that this hill may
have been the site of the Amyclse which maintained its
independence in spite of its formidable neighbour, in the
same Avay as Tiryns and Mycenae maintained theirs against
Argos; for its resistance could not have been so long
successful on such unequal terms, except by the help of a
stronghold securing it against the attack of superior force.
But when Amyche was finally conquered, the Spartans, we
may suppose, destroyed the fortifications of the polisma,
and caused the majority of the inhabitants to settle in the
plain below. They did not, like the Argives, transport
the inhabitants to their city — for, as we know, they had no
city themselves in the proper sense of the term — but they
caused them to dwell Kara kiowv — village -wise. Thus
the Amyclse of later days became a suburban 'village/
like one of the five urban villages, the aggregate of which
was called by the name of Sparta.

1 Polyb. v. 1 6. Leake, i. 136.

176 NOTES OF STUDY VXD TRAVEL.

In the Messenica (c. 18, 3) I find an expression which
seems to imply that even in Pausanias's time there were
two distinct places, Am yclse the polisma, and Amyclse the
home. ' Aristomenes with his hody of picked men set
out at nightfall, and made such speed that he arrived at
Amyclse before sunrise, and he both took and plundered
Amyche the polisma, and made good his retreat/ That
there is no special mention made of this distinction in his
description of the monuments at Amyclse will surprise no
one who is acquainted with the author's style.

There are two other passages in Pausanias which help
us, in conjunction with Polybius, to find the required
site. In iii. 18, 4, he says: 'As you go down from
Sparta to Amyclse there is a river called Tiasa.' This I
take to be the Trypiotiko so often mentioned, which, ac-
cording to my view, was outside the w T alls. Colonel Leake,
who believes another stream to be the Tiasa, nevertheless
expresses his surprise that Pausanias should not have
mentioned the Trypiotiko, a river which always has some
water — a case sufficiently rare to be remarkable — and at
times a great deal. My hypothesis obviates the difficulty.
Again, we find (from iii. 20, 3) that a river called Phellias
ran by Amyclse. The position, therefore, of ' the village'
must be sought on the banks of the second stream, which
runs from Taygetus to the Eurotas.

There is an oversight in Colonel Leake's map with
regard to the Phellias. Pausanias distinctly states, that
this river ran by Amyclse, and yet in the map the name
is given, not to the second, but to the fourth stream,
which joins the Eurotas south of Sparta, many miles
from the position which his text assigns to Amyclse.

XEROKAMPO A DIGRESSION'. 177

It being Holy Thursday according to the Greek calen-
dar, the modern Amycleans were all assembled in church
and about it, for the walls were too strait to contain
the congregation. In an olive-ground close by we ob-
served a large block of marble with an inscription,
dating from Roman times, about a certain high-priest
of the Sebasti Caii. Among other scattered relics there
was a fragment of a Corinthian column and the head of
an ox in marble, with a fillet, as if prepared for sacri-
fice. After a halt of forty minutes, we rode on, and
reached Xerokampo at ten o'clock.

The bridge, of whose existence M. Ross informed
Colonel Mure, and which the latter had difficulty in find-
ing out, is now one of the recognised ' lions ' of the
Spartan plain. The Eirenodikos knew of it, so did the
Kapnopoles, so did the bishop, and all spoke of it fami-
liarly, though none had taken the pains to pay it a visit.
Our dragoman, not generally famous as a ' path-finder/
brought us, by pebbly torrent-beds, and patches of green
corn and groves of mulberry and olive, straight without
a fault to the object of our search.

Colonel Mure says : ' With the exception, perhaps, of
the Lion-gate of Mycenae, I scai'cely know a monument
the first view of which produced so powerful an impression
on my mind. No entire ancient bridge of any kind —
still less an arched bridge of a genuine Hellenic period —
had hitherto been known to exist within the limits of
Greece ; and even the ability of Greek masons to throw
an arch had been very generally questioned. Here I saw
an arched bridge of considerable size and finished struc-
ture, and in a style of masonry which guarantees it a

178 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

work of the remotest antiquity — probably of the heroic
age itself. . . . The largest stones are those of the arch ;
some of them may be from four to five feet long, from
two to three in breadth, and between one and two in
thickness. In size and proportions they are nearly similar
to those which form the interior lining of the heroic
sepulchres at Mycence ; and the whole character of the
work leads to the impression of its being a structure of
the same epoch that produced those monuments/ 1

This passage affords an example of the exaggeration
into which, with the best good faith, a traveller's enthu-
siasm is prone to lead him, especially in regard to his own
discoveries. The proportions of the bridge are by no
means imposing, nor are the stones composing it, with
the exception, perhaps, of one or two upon which the arch
rests, anything like the size which is here assigned to them.
I had already seen at the Isthmus an ancient bridge, still
entire, of which the stones were far more massive; there-
fore the effect of this of Xerokampo upon my mind was
by no means such as Colonel Mure has described. But,
enthusiasm apart, the bridge is sufficiently ancient to be
interesting to the antiquary, and in a situation so beau-
tiful that, were it ever so recent, it would still be worth
visiting and sketching with pencil and brush, or, failing
the required skill, at all events with pen, for ' scribimus
indocti doctique/

At this point the lowest ' buttresses ' of Taygetus fall
steeply down to the plain. The face of the mountain is
rent into a deep, long, narrow glen, at the bottom of

1 ^lure's Tour in Greece, vol. i. pp. 248, 249.

XI -KOKAMPO A DIGRESSION. 179

which, 'mining a channeled way" through limestone
rocks, flows a bright and copious stream. Over this
stream, just where it escapes from the gloom of the glen
to the sunshine of the plain, is thrown a bridge, solid and
massive, built assuredly in the times ' when men knew
how to build/ Col. Mure reckons the span of the arch
at twenty-seven feet ■ but this, in my opinion, is far too
large. Its general structure is undoubtedly polygonal;
but then the arch itself is built of stones squared and
chiselled in far other than 'Cyclopean' fashion. Now,
when we find mingled in the same work an earlier and
later style, surely it is more reasonable to attribute it to
the later period. Skilled men may imitate the rudeness
of antiquity, but rude men cannot anticipate the skill of
posterity. I have said elsewhere that there is reason to
believe that the polygonal style continued to be occasion-
ally employed doAvn to later times. In the ruins of Samos
in Cephalonia there is a wall supporting a bank of earth,
of which the lower part is Hellenic, the upper polygonal.
It is also, as I have elsewhere said, the style which soldiers
turned masons would adopt by the light of nature. There
is no reason why this may not have been a Roman work. It
may also have been Hellenic— for I am convinced that the
Greeks were from immemorial time acquainted with the
principle of the arch j but the wonder of its preservation,
in any case great, is increased in proportion to its supposed
antiquity. The Handbook truly says, that the stones of
the arch are ' exquisitely hewn and symmetrically placed /
but the suggestion that ' the stones may have been taken
by the Romans or Byzantines from some Hellenic build-
ing in the neighbourhood/ will not bear the test of exami-

n 2

180 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

nation. Those who hewed the stones certainly intended
them to form an arch, for they have a concave and convex
edge, and increase in breadth towards the latter. It is
more likely that Roman, or, it may be, Byzantine soldiers
built this bridge on the ruins of a former structure, and
having thrown a new arch, put together wherever they
could the old materials again.

But Colonel Mure's hobby, Avhen once over the bridge,
gallops away with him by an impossible road over Tay-
getus. Metaphor apart, the question which Colonel Mure
propounds is this : Homer makes Telemachus come in a
chariot in one day from Pherse (Kalamata) to Sparta; how
can we find a practicable road, and so ' save Homer's
credit V This is the answer : —

' On looking along the mountain to the southward as
laid down on a very excellent map ... I observed at about
one-third of the distance towards Cape Matapan, indica-
tions of a considerable hollow or valley extending over
the crown of the ridge, in the centre of which was marked
a village called Kumusta. Here, therefore, I was willing
to suppose might have been a pass capable of affording a
carriage road from Pherse by a somewhat more circuitous
line. The next day we discovered the bridge of Xero-
kampo, the dimensions of which, it has been seen, prove
it to have been intended for the use of wheel carriages j
and on inquiry I ascertained that the track of which its
causeway is now the lower extremity, is in fact at this day
a common though less direct bridle-road across the moun-
tain to the Messenian plain. There can, therefore, be little
doubt that this is the line of route which Homer makes
Telemachus travel; and everything warrants the belief that

XEROKAMPO A DIGRESSION'. ] 81

the poet himself if not his hero, may have passed over
this very bridge/ 1

Now, in the first place, the very excellent map is con-
siderably at fault, if tested by the map of the French
survey. The hollow, or valley, does not extend over the
crown of the ridge, but ends at the base of the highest
culminating peak ; Kumusta is not in the centre, but half
way down the eastern side. According to the information
given me by a peasant whom I met coming down from
Kumusta, or some neighbouring village, there never was,
and never could have been, a carriage-road that way; there
is a difficult foot-road over the hill, and that leads not to
Kalamata, but to Androuvista, many miles away to the
southward. The path leading down from Kumusta, as it
approaches the lower end of the glen, follows, and must
always have followed, the northern bank of the stream ; so
that, granting the carriage-road, Telemachus would not
have crossed the bridge on his way to Sparta, but left it to
the right hand. I shall have occasion by-and-bye to return
to this subject, which is interesting, not because the route
of Telemachus is .of the smallest importance to any human
being, but because it bears upon the right interpretation
and use of Horner's poems. But how the old bard's
' credit' is concerned in the matter I cannot conceive.
"We ought not to find fault with a romance because it is
not history, nor censure a poem for not being an itinerary.
The glen above the bridge is one of the grandest
mountain defiles I ever saw. A few hundred yards higher
up there is a cavern in the face of a precipice, and in the

1 Mure's Tour in Greece, vol. i. p. 253.

18.2 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

cavern a church and hermitage, accessible by a narrow
and somewhat dangerous path. Beyond this is a singular
freak of nature — a mass of rock several hundred feet in
height projects into the glen, with a great chasm in the
middle, so that it looks like a flying buttress ' piled by
the hands of giants in the great days of old/ I never
saw a wilder gorge, nor any less adapted for a carriage-
road. To make one would have taxed to the utmost the
energies of those giants themselves. Returning from the
glen, we sat down on the grass near the bridge to take
luncheon, the materials for which w r e had brought with
us. But, in reckoning upon seclusion, we had reckoned
without our host. Some one had caught sight of us,
and reported it in the neighbouring village. Church was
over ; it was a strict holiday and a strict fast, so, having
nothing better to do, the whole population poured out to
see us. I counted seventy persons, of all ages, peering
curiously at us and our viands, hustling each other, and
at last hustling us, with a rudeness very unusual in Greek
peasants. They treated us with the less ceremony as
they were, I suppose, scandalized at our open disregard of
the orthodox regimen prescribed for Lent in general and
Passion-week in particular. "We were at length obliged
to take refuge on a rock in the middle of the stream,
where, at the risk of a sunstroke, we finished our unhal-
lowed repast in peace.

The Greek Church prescribes far more rigid rules for
Lenten fasts than the Church of Rome, and the rules
are also much more rigidly observed, at least in public.
I one day offered an egg to Alcibiades — a careless, good-
for-nothing gamin as could be; but he rejected it with

XEROKAMPO — A DIGRESSION. 183

an expression of the most sanctimonious horror. Fish,
too, is forbidden. Only one exception is made in favour
of the cuttle-fish, 1 which has been pronounced to be, in
an ecclesiastical point of view, a reptile, and lawful food
accordingly. In Passion-week the more rigid abstain
even from oil ; but this is a supererogatory privation. In
Athens there are many freethinkers, who openly disregard
all these rules, and doubtless many more who privately
break them. In the country, too, the educated men
groan under the infliction, but are forced to submit.
So far as I could learn, it is not so much fear of
ecclesiastical censure which enforces this reluctant sub-
mission, but the strength of public opinion among the
men and women of the poorer class, and the women of
all classes. One gentleman of high respectability com-
plained bitterly of his wife's superstition, in starving
herself, and consequently half-starving her infant. He
showed us, with tears in his eyes, how pale and thin
its cheeks were, and uttered in his wrath certain adju-
rations of a by no means ' orthodox ' character. ' In-
validi raatrum referunt jejunia nati.' It is indeed a hard
case for the ' invalid' children, who share the privation
without the merit.

But the subject is really too serious to be jested about.
These rigid rules, which tax poor human nature to the
uttermost in the observance of outward formalities, crush
and destroy all vital and spiritual religion. All the facul-

1 The chorus in the Acharnians (1156) pray that they may one
day see the stingy Antimachus, revOlBos 8e6fievoi>, ' in want even of
cuttle-fish,' suffering the extremity of destitution. It is at all times
a very abundant, cheap, and disgusting article of food.

184 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

ties of the soul are concentrated on the achievement of
formal obedience, and are a blank so far as regards moral
teaching. Ceremonial cleanness is all in all ; inward
purity is not thought of. The Pharisaism which our
Lord denounced could not be more abominable than the
Pharisaism which the Greek Church enforces in His name.
I speak thus strongly not from my own observation, which,
though tending always to confirm what I have said, was
not extended enough to justify so sweeping a conclusion,
but from the unanimous testimony of all persons qualified
to judge, Greeks as well as foreigners. All these persons
were agreed that the rapid progress of education and the
influence of European customs would speedily sweep away
both this and other pernicious superstitions of that most
corrupt church, but they differed as to the form of religion
which should succeed it. Some built their hopes upon
the unimpeded circulation of the Neiv Testament, and were
sanguine enough to hope for a reformed hierarchy, a puri-
fied liturgy, and scriptural doctrine ; others looked forward
to the substitution of spiritual apathy and intellectual un-
belief. But it is idle to speculate on the coming change.
Indeed, it may be long before any change comes at all, at
least in the institutions and customs of the Church. The
education which is expected to overthrow all faith in the
minds of the men will scarcely influence the women. In
Greece the woman is regarded as the inferior of the man,
and is not trained to be his friend and companion, but,
according to the husband's wealth and rank, the drudge
or ornament of his household. So that old prejudice will
retain its hold over the women, and will through them
influence the children. Besides, the Church has a hold

XEBOKAMPO — A DIGRESSION. 185

upon the patriotism as well as the superstition of the
Greeks. It was for ages the sole bond of union among
them — the one national institution which remained to
remind them that they had once been free. So they clung
to the Church and its usages in spite of the most grinding
tyranny ; for in it they saw not only all their hopes here-
after, but their single chance of ultimate deliverance on
earth. They love the Church because their fathers have
suffered for it, and with it. It will, therefore, continue
long to be the policy of the Greek government to exalt
and conciliate the priesthood ; the priests will retain all
their hold upon the women and the rural population ; and
the mass of educated men will find no difficulty in com-
bining outward conformity with secret unbelief. As for
the priests, who are being educated too, self-interest will
prompt a sophistry whereby they may palliate to their
consciences the teaching of doctrines which they do not
believe, and the enforcing of observances which they think
meaningless and absurd. And this result will come about
with the more facility as selfishness and subtlety are said
to be common blemishes of the modern Greek character.
It will not be the first time in the world's history that the
frightful spectacle has been presented of a divorce between
the national faith and the national reason, resulting in
grovelling superstition among the lower classes, and cynical
indifference among the upper. The wonder is that a state
of things so rotten should have any permanence. And
yet there are examples enough to prove that it may last
long, and that the crisis, which seems every moment im-
minent, may be indefinitely delayed.

France, in these latter days, had a long succession of

186 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

sceptical prelates ; Rome, in the Middle Ages, a long series
of infidel popes ; in the ancient Rome, many generations
of augurs laughed in each other's faces ; and Eleusis found
for four centuries after Christ hierophants of her exploded
mysteries. So in modern Greece we may find that, for a
long time to come, the king, ministers, senators and depu-
ties, the professors and students of the university, and all
the priests who are not also peasants, will be utter disbe-
lievers, while the lower orders will retain a deep-rooted
conviction of the efficacy of relics and the divine obliga-
tion to abstain from eggs. Meanwhile the upper ranks of
the hierarchy will, with all due gravity, mumble the mass
and exhibit the authentic mummy of an apostle ; and the
upper ranks of the laity as solemnly chant the responses
and kiss the mummy's toe. In that case all hope of the
establishment of some rational form of Christianity will
lie in the small body of men who may be found honest
enough not to palter with their consciences, and bold
enough to face the protracted martyrdom which a society
composed of superstitious fanatics and conforming infidels
will be sure to inflict with peculiar refinement of cruelty.
These may break away from Pharisee and Sadducee, and
form a separate sect, which, persecuted and despised, may
be the very salt of the social body — a living seed sown
among corruption — the nucleus and germ of a future
national church.

vYe returned along the base of the hills to Mistra. On
the way we halted beside a copious fountain gushing out
from under the conglomerate. Close by was a ruined
Byzantine church, which itself had been built out of the
fragments of a ruined temple : an Ionic capital of white

XE&OKAMPO A DIGRESSION". 187

marble still remained. I suppose this is the place where
Colonel Leake mentions having seen some sculptures in
relief (vol. i. p. 187). They have vanished now. From
the position of the temple it may be supposed to have
been dedicated to the nymphs. The village of Brysege,
mentioned by Pausanias, must have been in this neigh-
bourhood, and very likely took its name from this abound-
ing spring, or Bnjsis.

We halted again in one of the steep and ruinous streets
of Mistra; and were induced by heat and fatigue to
abandon our purpose of exploring the old castle, whose
battlements, Frank, Venetian, or Turkish, crown so pic-
turesquely the salient angle of the mountain-wall, to
whose steep ledges cling the decaying remnants of what
was the capital city of Laconia, and reluctantly turned
towards Sparta. The way lies down a well-wooded ravine,
where the thick trees are festooned with luxuriant ivy and
wild vine, and the babbling of the stream is mingled with
the thick warbled notes of innumerable nightingales. One
might fancy that in this glen the Spartan virgins cut their
thyrsi and wove their garlands when on their way to hold
their strange orgies to Dionysus, wandering from village
to village and from wood to wood on the mountain slopes
of Taygetus.

Next morning we found the main street of Sparta
crowded with lambs, and with the buyers and sellers
thereof. It was Good Friday. Even the poorest families
contrive to kill a lamb on Easter Sunday; and they buy
it at the fair on the Friday preceding. Our balcony over-
hung the most crowded part of the market, and we amused
ourselves with watching many a noisy protracted bargain,

188 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

which always ended in mutual content — the happy rustic
pocketing his money, and the happy citizen carrying off
the lamb on the back of his neck, anticipating the delight
of his children playing with it on the morrow and eating
it the day after. In almost every shop window was a dis-
play of Easter bread — a kind of fantastically twisted roll
with hard-boiled eggs stuck in it. Sometimes the eggs
were left plain white, sometimes they were dyed in gay
colours like the ' Pace eggs/ or otherwise, by corruption,
1 Paste eggs/ of the north of England. I have seen the
Paschal eggs exhibited in the shops of Paris, and the custom
prevails in many parts of Christendom. One might draw
the inference that eggs had once been universally prohi-
bited during Lent, as in the Greek church they are pro-
hibited to this day. If there be any symbolical meaning
attached, I should conceive that it is an after-thought of
the clergy, a kindly device for making the custom tend to
edification.

CHAPTER XII.

TAYGETUS.

' 1\/T 0UNT Ta ygetus, famous in all ages for its honey,
- 1 -*- is formed of a slippery rock, so hard as not to be
broken without difficulty, and bristled with little points
and angles, on which the gentlest fall is attended with
danger/ Thus far the Handbook. The description,
aiming at being compendious, fails to be comprehensive,
and scarcely does justice to the varied agricultural pro-
ducts or the intricate geological structure of the moun-
tain. 1 The main ridge culminates into several successive
peaks. The highest summit of all is that of St. Elias,
reaching an elevation of 2409 French metres, equivalent
to 7905 English feet. Pausanias (iii. 20, 5) mentions

1 A section of Taygetus given in the atlas published by the French
surveyors, specifies no less than thirteen different formations as com-
posing this range of mountain. ' 1. Schistes anciens — 2. Anagenites
et schistes ferrugineux — 3. Marbres talqueux — 4. Schistes talqueux
verts — 5. Marbres tigres — 6". Marbres siliceux — 7. Calcaires modifies
— 8. Calcaire lithographique — 9. Serpentine — 10. G res vert — n.Cal-
caire blanc, craie compacte — 12. Terrain tertiaire — 13. Alluvions.'

The peaks and the highest ridges are composed of silicious marbles ;
below them the mass of the mountain is divided between ' old schist'
towards the eastern side, and ' marbres talqueux' or ' tigres' towards
the western side, with an almost vertical layer of * ferruginous schist'
at the point of junction.

190 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

two principal summits. One of them is easily identified ;
for the other there may be many claimants. There are
several lesser peaks nearly equal in height to one another,
but all falling far below St. Elias. c A summit of Tay-
getus, called Taleton, rises above Brysese; this, they say,
is sacred to the sun, and there they offer various sacrifices,
particularly horses. I know that the Persians are in the
habit of sacrificing the same animal. Not far from Taleton
is Euoras, where are found wild goats in abundance, and
other wild creatures. Indeed every part of the mountain
affords sport in these goats and in boars, and very good
sport also in stags and bears. And the district which lies
between Taleton and Euoras is called Therai ' [i.e. hunting
ground, f chace').

At first sight one is disposed to hazard a conjecture
that the principal peak derives its modern name from the
similarity in sound between 'Elias' and c Helios/ but a
glance at the map of Greece is sufficient to disprove this.
Almost all the highest peaks of the respective ranges are
called after St. Elias. Probably the name comes from
the Asiatic Clnistians, who, finding all the high places
specially dedicated to Belus or Baal, naturally transferred
the honour to Elijah, who had so signally confuted his
pretensions to divinity. It was on one of the high places,
too, Mount Carmel, that the scene took place. 1 The con-
cluding verses of the chapter in which the story is told
make the dedication of a mountain-top to Elijah still more
appropriate: f And Elijah went up to the top of Carmel;
and he cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face

1 Kings xviii. 19.

TAYGETUS. 191

between his knees, and said to his servant, Go up now,
— look toward the sea.' There is scarcely a peak of any
eminence in this little peninsula of Greece from which
the sea is not visible. There is a pass leading over into
Messenia between St. Elias and another summit to the
right, which is perhaps the Euoras of Pausanias. This
was the route we wished to take ; but our guide made
so many difficulties, alleging, first, that it was still
impracticable, owing to the snow; next, that we must
get mules or donkeys without shoes to carry our bag-
gage over the steep and slippery rocks, which mules
or donkeys were not to be had for love or money,
seeing that it was a point of conscience with them to
spend Easter Sunday at home, Sec. &c, that we finally
yielded, and agreed to take a lower path to the northward,
under the peak of Malevo, sleeping the first night at Kas-
tania, a lofty mountain-hamlet. We left Sparta at two
o'clock in the afternoon of Friday, April 25. Our way
lay along the banks of the Eurotas. We passed many
groups of gaily- dressed villagers returning from the fair
at Sparta. After riding along the right bank of the
Eurotas for an hour and a half, we came to a stream
which flowed from Taygetus to join the main river, under
a dense growth of ilex and various low trees, over which
trailed clematis and wild vine. At this time our con-
ductor was far behind with the baggage, and had left us
to our own instincts and reason. The latter faculty sug-
gested that we should follow the path to the left, which
seemed the better tracked ; the former faculty made us
feel that the valley up which it led was uncommonly
charming; so we turned off, without reflecting that we

192 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

had no good ground for assuming it to be the way to
Kastania. By-and-bye we overtook an old man, of whom
we made inquiries — for by this time we were able to carry
on a rudimentary conversation in the modern jargon —
and received for answer the pleasing intelligence that we
were not on the right track for Kastania, but for Bordonia,
a village which we might see on the side of the hill some
miles farther on. I observed that, in pronouncing this
word, he gave to the initial letter the ordinary b sound,
not v, after the modern Greek fashion ; and, if I mistook
not, other peasants of the district in other words pro-
nounced the /3 in the same way. If so, the old and true
pronunciation 1 survives in a provincial peculiarity. The
old man regarded us with no small curiosity. Uowov
uaOc ti)u TraTpiSa ; he asked, ' Where do you live when
you are at home V ' England.' — ' What business have
you at Kastania?' f Nothing ; only to see it.' — Our
replies were received with a prolonged and significant
shrug of the shoulders, which I interpreted to mean,
' What a couple of idiots you are to come, no one knows
how far, to see Kastania, and to be riding about the hills
at this time of day without a guide !' We began to be
of the same opinion, and, as we followed a rugged, ill-
tracked path to the right, which he pointed out to us,
were speculating on the chances of passing the night
shelterless and supperless on the mountain, when we

1 That the Greek j3 had anciently the sound of the English b, is
proved by their using /3J), fir/ to imitate the bleating of sheep. In a
modem Greek poem which I have seen this sound is represented by
fine, fiTre. This alio shows that 7 was anciently pronounced like our
a in ' fate.'

T.YYGETUS. 193

heard a familiar voice shouting behind us, and were
presently joined by Alexander, who, having sent on the
baggage by the proper road, had been riding about in
search of us in a high state of alarm and perplexity. All's
well that ends well. We arrived at Kastania before it
was dark, and by this little escapade enjoyed a succession
of wide prospects, which would have been hid to us had
we followed the beaten track. The slopes along which
we were riding were one mass of pink and yellow flowers ;
and beyond this bright foreground we looked over the
lower hills that lie about the valley of the Eurotas to the
heights beyond, rising range over range, and overtopped
in the far distance by the triple peaks of Parnon. It was
a real April day, when showers and gleams chase each
other through the sky, and sun and shadow flit across the
landscape in a way that would give life and loveliness to
the barest, blankest desert. Here, however, was infinite
variety on the earth, as well as in the sky. Through the
trailing skirts of the rain-cloud, whose shade steeped the
valleys in dark purple, we could see the far-off summits
bright with sunlight. Then a sudden shower sweeping
by would blot out the vision of Parnon — his golden crown,
his purple robe, and imperial state — and, as it passed away,
exhibit him again tricked out in some new device, which
in its turn changed and faded before one's fancy could fit
it with a simile. We paused on the way to drink at a
fountain, just above which, on a scarcely accessible ledge
in a steep precipice, is a convent called Panaghia es to
Pegddi, ' our Lady at the fountain/ Close by, if I mis-
take not, are traces of old foundations, which perhaps
mark the site of Demon. 1

1 Paus. iii. 20, 7.

194 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

Kastania is a village of straggling houses half hidden
in mulberry-trees. One is surprised to find the mulberry
so high up on the mountain-side ; but the situation is
otherwise favourable, in a nook or fold of the hill, sheltered
from the north winds and lying open to the sun. There
is no trace of antiquity here. The houses are large and
new, strongly but roughly built, with an air of rustic
opulence about them. We occupied the first floor of one
of the largest, which the family abandoned to us, stipu-
lating with Alexander for remuneration. At one end
there was a hearth and fireplace, round which the inmates
generally slept ; the rest of the long room was occupied
with sacks of corn, casks, wood, and all manner of farming
implements and household stuff. "While dinner was pre-
paring I walked about the village, and was followed at a
respectful distance by a crowd of young children making
large eyes of wonder, but not saying a word ; and returning
to the house, I found all the elders of the place assembled,
gazing in silent admiration at the culinary operations of
Constantine and the treasures of Alexander's canteen.
This scene was repeated whenever we came to any out-of-
the-way place, and our people seemed to have implicit
confidence in the honesty of these curious rustics. On one
occasion only was anything missing, and then it was the
good wife of the house herself who was suspected of having
broken the laws of the Hospitable Zeus.

"We left Kastania at six next morning. There was a bright
sun shining, and a fresh wind blowing, as we rode up the
mountain. The path winds with easy gradients over crum-
bling shale. "We soon came among the black pines, which,
as if to show their hardihood, seem to grow best in places
where the rocks are roughest, and where there is least shelter

TAYGETUS. ] 95

from the storm. Interspersed here and there were smooth,
sheltered slopes, where grew knolls of chesnut-trees not
yet in leaf, and looking as if dwarfed and stunted by the
cold, their trunks deep in dry fern — the common English
brake — which by an odd coincidence is called fioaya by
the modern Greeks. In two hours Ave reached the top of
the pass, which I suppose to be between 4000 and 5000
feet above the sea ; a level plain with gable ends of moun-
tain on the right hand and on the left. Hence we looked
over the bay of Kalamata — the Messenian gulf glassy
smooth, but with a narrow rim of white where it swept
inward in a long curve to join the flat beach. Beyond the
bay rose the rocky promontory of Modon, and beyond
that again the sea. A low bank of level white cloud,
which lay along the far horizon, distinguished between
the liquid azure of the water and the sky.

On the western side the mountain is barer and the
path steeper. Near the top is loose schist; then, as in
the descent of Artemisium, we come upon grey and blue
slate with the edges uppermost, alternating here and there
with limestone, mingled, as is the slate, with quartz. About
half-way down I saw a solitary block of red granite. We
saw at some distance on the right the village of Anastasova,
with a convent standing apart; and on the left Sitzova, a
grim, sombre place among olive-grounds and ploughed
fields, the soil of which is saved from being swept down
by the rains by a series of artificial terraces. Thanks to
their almost impregnable position, these people contrived
to maintain themselves in a state of qualified independence
of the Mussulmans — that is to say, like the neighbouring
Mainotes, they were sufficiently strong to make terms

o 2

196 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

with the oppressors, and paid a tribute on condition of
being left alone. They plume themselves much, we were
told, even to this day, on their invincibility, and claim to
be the descendants of the ancient Spartans. f The ancient
Messenians ' would be a more probable boast, were not all
such vauntings estopped by the palpably Sclavonian names
which the villages bear, and which prove the inhabitants
to have about as much claim to Hellenic descent as the
citizens of Warsaw. 1

At ten o'clock we crossed a stream and passed through
the village of Tzeruitsa, surrounded, like the others, with
orchards, cherry-trees, and olive-grounds. Each house
stands detached from its neighbours, and is surrounded by
its own court- yard. The door of the house is in the first
floor, accessible by a ladder or wooden staircase easily
removeable. Clearly security against a sudden attack
has been the thought uppermost in the builder's mind.

From this place we proceed to climb over one of the
lateral ridges of the mountain. The ascent of the north
side takes about forty minutes, and a steep descent on the
south brings us in another hour to the village of Lada.
Below this we came to a halt, nothing loth, in a shady
place by the bed of a stream, close to a picturesque little
water-mill, overgrown, like all the water-mills of the
country, with a profuse vegetation of feathery ferns and
flowering cyclamen. Here we lay down to rest ; while

1 The Greek Chronicle of the Conquest, to which I have before re-
ferred, calls the inhabitants of this part of Taygetus McXtyyoi, and
speaks of them as a tribe apart, separate and distinct from the Pcopmoi,
i. e. the Greeks. They were dvdpunovs a\a£nviKovs k ot> <rt($avTai
avGivrqv (line 1668).

TAYGETUS. 197

the cook gathered sticks, lit a fire, and prepared our usual
mid-day meal — tea -with a slice of lemon in it, Russian
fashion, where milk was not to be had — a dish of cutlets
or fried eggs, bread and honey. Our dragoman-in-chief
spread the table and served as waiter; and the horses
were left to graze, under the eye of the two agoyates,
Pericles and Alcibiades. The rigid abstinence which these
two observed — iu spite of the heterodox example of their
elders — did not seem in the least to impair their strength
and activity. They had been six hours on foot without
breaking their fast, and after all they broke it with no-
thing stronger than bread and olives — their constant diet
for six weeks before. The most stalwart Englishman
would have broken down under such a regimen. All the
nations of Southern Europe — Spaniards, Italians, Greeks
— endure privations much better than northern nations;
a fact which must be borne in mind when, in the history
of ancient Greek warfare, we read of armies marching
longer distances in shorter time than would be possible
with French, or German, or English troops even without
a train of artillery. Our troops require more elaborately
prepared food, and more of it. The ' food for three days'
which an old Greek soldier carried in his knapsack would
scarcely serve a modern English soldier for one day.

Another rugged and steep ascent has to be made before
we are clear of the winding defiles — ' the folds/ as the
ancients called them — of the mountain, and see the plain
at our feet. In rounding the shoulder of this last hill
and looking back there is a wide and wild prospect of the
sweeping lines of Taygetus ; and below, at our feet, in the
very heart of the hills, the quiet village of Lada, nestling

198 XOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

among its blossoms and gardens like a delicate gem in

rude barbaric setting. This is the only part of the whole

route which has the slightest claim to be called dangerous.

The narrow path hangs over one precipice, and another

precipice hangs over it ; but a traveller in the Alps passes

such places daily and hourly without noticing them. But

the path, if not dangerous, is exceedingly toilsome. It is

over a rock hard in itself, and filled with nodules harder

still ; so that, instead of being tracked, it is honeycombed

by the feet of mules and horses. Just as we commenced

the descent a thunderstorm burst upon us with unusual

violence. The vivid flashes were followed, with alarming

rapidity, by a series of short, sharp cracks of thunder, as

if an aerial rifle-brigade were firing by platoons, and the

fire returned from a whole corps of echoes ambushed on

the hill. The rain came down in sheets, and, filling up

the honeycombs, converted the path into a torrent-bed.

We had reason to admire the surefootedness of our sorry

steeds, which plashed, and slid, and scrambled along

without once falling. When the storm cleared away we

saw the groves of Kalamata just below us, glistening in

the evening sun without a breath to stir their leaves.

Then leaving the stony mountain waste, we entered upon

the enclosed ground, through which ran narrow tracks cut

deep between sandy banks, and bordered on either side

by hedges of gigantic cactus. The hoofs of our cavalcade,

which had clinked so long upon the rocks, were suddenly

silent, muffled in sand ; the air felt warm and moist, like

that of a hothouse, and was heavy with the odour of orange

and lemon flowers.

CHAPTER XIII.

KALAMATA THE HOMERIC PHEFLE.

TT7~E went to the khan, but found it crowded with guests
eagerly awaiting the termination of Lent, and evi-
dently prepared to make a night of it. In this dilemma
we inquired for the house of the English vice-consul, and
were directed to one of the best houses in the town. The
owner, Mr. Londariotis, hastened out to meet us, insisted
upon our lodging with him, gave up his best room to our
use, and furnished our table with the best wine in his
cellar. "VYe felt this kindness the more because there is
no salary attached to the office ; he owed England nothing.
It may be asked, How does England find people willing to
do her work on these terms ? The answer is, that the
appointment stamps the receiver with a character for
trustworthiness, and gives him rank, like a commercial
order of merit. Our host was vice-consul for Russia also,
and one or two other countries. On the following day,
Easter Sunday, however, the British flag waved alone
from the roof — perhaps to do us especial honour. On the
night of Easter-even every church is crowded. There is
a long service appointed for the occasion, and timed so as
to last till past midnight. The moment it is over, out
pour the congregation, howling and screaming with delight.
They rush from church to church, meeting with other con-

200 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

gregations just released and similarly disposed ; or, if they
find any church in which the service is not yet done, they
insult and triumph over the laggards. Some have pro-
vided themselves with squibs and crackers, which they
fling up against the windows or in at the door ; every man
who has a gun or pistol to fire, fires it ; and those who
have neither, shout at the top of their voices. When their
powder and lungs are exhausted, they all hasten home to
a surfeit of roast lamb. On that night, too, sobriety —
generally the most exemplary of Greek virtues — ' ceases
to be sober/ Man, woman, and child share alike in the
late revel. And thus the holy orthodox church welcomes
the dawn of the Resurrection.

A range of hills, hillocks by comparison, the last and
lowest of the spurs of Taygetus, ends towards the south-
west in an abrupt descent to a level plain, the alluvium of a
torrent which, issuing from behind this range, rounds the
promontory, and spreads itself over a wide bed, at right
angles to its former course. On this promontory stands
a medieval castle in ruins ; and on the plain at its foot, on
the left bank of the stream, the flourishing town of Kala-
mata. The site of the castle is exactly such as the
ancients would have chosen to found a city upon ; and we
may be certain that some city stood here, although not a
trace of wall or tower or temple can be discovered. The
circumstantial evidence is strong enough in the absence of
direct testimony. There is also every reason to believe
that this city was Pherce, or Pharce. In all respects but
one the situation tallies with the indications of the topo-
graphers. Strabo describes Pharce as being five, and
Pausanias states that Pherce was six, stades from the sea.

KALAMATA THE HOMERIC rilEK.E. 201

Now Kalamata is nine or ten. This is to be accounted
for by the rapid accumulation of the deposit brought down
by the torrent, which has thrust out the sea half a mile
in the course of seventeen or eighteen centuries. There
are instances in which the land has encroached upon the
sea, from similar causes, much more rapidly than here.
Ravenna and Yelez Malaga occur to me as I write. The
bed of the river is crossed by a long wooden bridge. All
about the town are groves of oranges, lemon-trees, olives,
and mulberries; and towards the shore, fields of maize and
cotton. The water is all, at this season, diverted for irri-
gation or absorbed in the sand and gravel before it reaches
the sea. Its course is marked by a double line of
oleanders, even now, in this sunny, sheltered corner,
coming into flower. We walked by its banks to the shore,
where is no pier or sign of sea-port, only a lonesome cus-
tom-house for taking toll upon the goods laden or unladen
in the open roadstead beyond. A single ship was riding
at anchor outside. The port of Phara was only a
■ summer anchorage/ as now. In case of storm, vessels
would run for shelter to Kitries on one side of the bay,
or Petalidi on the other.

Having a special letter of introduction to the nomarch
of Messenia, whose head-quarters are at Kalamata, we
proceeded, accompanied by the vice-consul, to deliver it.
There was some little demur at the door about admitting
us ; however, the vice-consul would brook no denial, and
carried us to the presence-chamber. There we found the
nomarch in dishabille, that is to say, a capacious great-
coat and slippers, and nothing else in particular. This
was no doubt the cause of the demur, for nothing could

20.2 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

exceed the affability of our reception. Every man in
office, I suppose, certainly every Greek in office, likes
to appear as a dignitary to strangers, and does not
willingly admit them to, or before his toilette. No man
is a dignitary to his valet. We found with him two
friends enjoying this especial degree of intimacy ; an engi-
neer in government employ who had learnt French, and
a Bavarian doctor who had not forgotten German. This
was lucky, for we were not as yet sufficiently familiar with
the spoken language to follow, much less make a suitable
reply to, the fluent periods of the nomarch. Thanks to
these interpreters we had a long conversation. His ap-
pointment was recent, and had made quite a sensation in
the little political world of Athens. He had taken an
active part in the Greek invasion of Thessaly two years
before, and by nominating him to office the Greek
cabinet gave an expression of its sympathies, and a back-
handed slap in the face to the ministers of France and
England. To my surprise the nomarch plunged at once
into the subject. He had always, he said, been a devoted
partisan of the English, the truest and most disinterested
friends of Greece. The attempt in which he had taken
part was directed immediately, it was true, against Turkey,
but remotely against Russia also, for there was nothing
the Russians would so much dislike as to see the Greeks
in possession of the provinces which she wanted for herself,
and so forth. In about an hour after we had taken leave
the nomarch came to return our call, accompanied by the
same friends. We had thought him a somewhat shrunken,
elderly man ; now he was resplendent and rejuvenescent, in
crimson jacket, ample white tunic, and embroidered greaves.

KALAMATA — THE HOMERIC IMIER.E. 203

This time I had an interesting talk with the engineer.
He had been employed in surveying for projected roads.
He had found in various parts of Greece remains of bridges,
unquestionably Hellenic, the span of which was too wide
to have been accomplished except by means of an arch.
He instanced in particular one at Kokino, near Thebes,
and had no doubt whatever that the ancient Greeks were
perfectly conversant with the principle of the arch. He
had examined the passes of Taygetus, and found no traces
anywhere of a carriage-road between Messenia and Laconia.
He ridiculed the idea of any one being able by any detour
to drive in one day from Kalamata to Sparta. I put my
questions to him with a tacit reference to the passage in
the Odyssey, which describes the journey of Telemachus
and the son of Nestor, at the end of the third book. The
first day they came from Pylos to Pherse. The distance,
which took us, as we afterwards found, ten hours to ride,
exclusive of stoppages, may be estimated at thirty-five
miles ; and on the supposition of a carriage-road, to the
construction of which the nature of the country presents
no formidable obstacles, might be easily accomplished by
the good steeds of Nestor in a day. I assume for the
nonce the identity of Nestor's Pylos with old Navarino.
Any other hypothesis involves the first day's journey in
as much difficulty as the second. At Pherse they put up
at the house of Diodes, son of Orsilochus, and spent the
night. Now comes the material difficulty : ' And soon
as the daughter of the prime appeared, rosy-fingered
Dawn, they yoked the horses and mounted the gay
chariot, and forth they drove from the porch and
sounding corridor ; and the son of Nestor flogged his

201 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

horses to their speed, and the pair, nothing loth, flew
onward. And they came to a wheat-growing plain, and
thenceforth they made good speed, so well their swift
steeds drew. And the sun set, and all the roads grew
dark. And they came to hollow Lacedsemon, cleft
with glens, and they drove to the hall of famous
Menelaus/

The plain sense of these words is that Telemachus and
Pisistratus drove a pair of horses in one clay from Pherse
to Sparta. They will bear no other construction. And
yet this is a physical impossibility. A road over Taygetus
w r ould be a work w T hich might challenge comparison with
that over the Simplon. It would have been renowned all
over ancient Hellas, sung by poets, chronicled by his-
torians. But there is not a tittle of evidence, documentary
or local, to show that it ever existed. It never did exist ;
and Telemachus no more drove in one day from Pherse to
Sparta, than his father descended to Hades by way of
Gibraltar. Fact says one thing ; the poem says another.
The simplest plan would be to acquiesce, and leave to each
its own sphere, instead of twisting both with laborious
effort in order to bring them together. The critics and
commentators who devote themselves to this futile industry
find no lack of material. The geography of Homer is full
of similar difficulties — so full, indeed, that Mr. Grote re-
nounces in despair all attempt to criticise his map of the
Peloponnese. The youthful achievements of Nestor against
the people of Elis, as related by himself in the eleventh
book of the Iliad (lines 670, sqq.), cannot be reconciled
with the country which is their supposed theatre. Of the
seven cities which Agamemnon offers to Achilles, ' all

KALAMATA THE HOMERIC PHER/E. 205

near the sea, marching with sandy Pylos/ 1 those which
can be identified are not anywhere near Pylos, to say
nothing of the historical difficulty — viz., that if they were
near Pylos, Agamemnon would not have had them to give,
and the explanation of Colonel Leake that that was the
reason why he so readily offered them.

I take one more instance, a notable instance, from the
Odyssey (b. ix. 21, sqq.) : e I dwell in sunny Ithaca ....
and around it lie islands, many very near to each other j
Dulichium, and Same, and woody Zakynthos; but itself
lieth low, farthest out in the sea towards the dark (i. e.,
the west) j but the others are apart towards the dawn
and the sun.' This description, given with a parade of
minuteness — \iav Trtpitpyug, as Eratosthenes said of other
Homeric descriptions — is wrong in every particular. Ithaca
is not low, but mountainous ; it does not lie farthest out
to sea, but nearest the mainland ; it is north-east of Same,
i. e. Cephalonia, and north of Zante. But, above all this,
there is no island at all corresponding with this Dulichium ;
it is altogether a fiction of the poet's brain. The hypo-
thesis that he meant by Dulichium one of the little islands
which form the Echinades group, as the poet of the Iliad
may have meant when in the catalogue (b. ii. 625) he
says, ' Dulichium and the Echinse, sacred islands that lie
bevond sea over against Elis/ is quite irreconcileable with
its characteristics in the Odyssey. The Dulichium of the
Odyssey is rich in corn and pasture f it contributes nearly
as many suitors as all the other islands put together —
fifty-two out of a total of a hundred and eight. 3 The

1 II. ix. 149. 2 Od. xvi. 396. 3 lb. xvi. 247.

206 MOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

island of Santa Maura will not serve our turn. It is not
large enough ; it does not suit the text of the Iliad ; it
•was, being then a peninsula, in all probability the country
called Akte j 1 it is north of Ithaca, while Dulichium lay
to the south in the poet's mind, for Ithaca is on the way
between it and the Thesprotians. 2 Here, then, Homer
gives a wrong description of Ithaca, and of its position
with respect to neighbouring islands; and, to crown all,
transforms Dulichium — which, if it ever existed, was at
best only the chief of a group of small islets, mere rocks
in the sea — into an island as large as Zante and Cephalonia
put together. I give these as a sample of the dilemmas
out of which those critics must extricate themselves who
insist upon making Homer the father of geography as
well as poetry. There are not wanting critics who are
prepared to affiliate all the sciences upon him. Indeed
this sect of literary idolators took its rise very early, and
has counted among its adherents the majority of critics in
all ages. To these Homerolaters the Iliad and Odyssey are
a kind of lay Bible, universally infallible, containing not
merely legend and poetry, which was all the author pro-
fessed, but all the truths of all sciences expressed or im-
plied. We may see the growth of an idolatry almost
similar in our own day, having for its object Shakespeare.
On the other hand, there have not been wanting men to
protest against this abandonment of reason and misuse of
reasoning. In the third century b.c. Eratosthenes declared
that in matters of geography Homer was not to be trusted
as a guide ; f for/ he says, ' the aim of every poet is to

1 Od. xxiv. 376. s lb. xiv. 334.

KALAMATA THE HOMERIC PHER/E. 207

interest, not to instruct/ 1 Strabo, himself one of the
idolators, replies in a manner which shows that he does
not comprehend the real drift of Eratosthenes. He does
not go to the root of the matter. The truth is that
Eratosthenes was a practical man of science, and Strabo
a pedantic man of letters. Even Strabo throws over the
authority of Homer when it suits him to do so. In the
eighth book (p. 359 a) he tells us that Messenia during
the Trojan war was under the sceptre of Menelaus, and
did not come into the possession of the Neleidse of Pylos
till after his death. This is entirely unsupported by any
direct statement in either poem, and is inferentially con-
tradicted by the passage in the Iliad, already referred to,
about the seven cities offered by Agamemnon to Achilles.
But, it may be said, how can we deny the authority of
Homer in matters of geography while we admit the
beautiful appropriateness of his epithets, ' the walled
Tiryns/ 'the grassy Haliartus/ ' horse-feeding Argos/
' sandy Pylos/ and ' hollow Lacedsemon, cleft with glens V
This is the very inconsistency which Strabo charges upon
Eratosthenes. 2 The inconsistency, if such there be, is not
in the critic who observes it, but in the poet himself.
Sometimes the story and the language are in strict ac-
cordance with the observed facts of geography and topo-
graphy, sometimes in striking contradiction. Here is a
difficulty which we may or may not be able to account
for; we certainly never shall account for it unless, in the
first instance, we frankly admit its existence and magni-

Strabo, p. J, A. — 7roii]rrjs Tras crro^a^erat \(^v)(aycoyias ov
StSatr/caAiay.

2 lb. p. 16, B.

208 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

tude. There is a passage in Eothen bearing directly
on this question, which, familiar though it be, I venture
to quote once more. I verified it with my own eyes from
the plain of Troy.

c Whilst we were at Constantinople, Methley and I had
pored over the map together ; we agreed that, whatever
may have been the exact site of Troy, the Grecian camp
must have been nearly opposite to the space betwixt the
islands of Imbros and Tenedos —

fxecrcrrjyvs TevtBoto Kai ' Ipfipov TranraXoecrcrTjs,

but Methley reminded me of a passage in the Iliad in
which Neptune is represented as looking at the scene of
action before Ilion from above the island of Samothrace.
Now, Samothrace, according to the map, appeared to be
not only out of all seeing distance from the Troad, but
to be entirely shut out from it by the intervening Imbros,
a larger island, which stretches its length right athwart
the line of sight from Samothrace to Troy. Piously
allowing that the dread commotor of our globe might
have seen all mortal doings even from the depths of his
own cerulean kingdom, T still felt that, if a station were
to be chosen from which to see the fight, old Homer, so
material in his ways of thought, so averse from all hazi-
ness and overreaching, would have meant to give the god
for his station some spot within reach of men's eyes from
the plains of Troy. I think that this testing of the poet's
words by map and compass may have shaken a little of
my faith in the completeness of his knowledge. Well,
now I had come, there to the south was Tenedos, and
here at my side was Imbros, all right, and according to

KALAMATA TIIE HOMERIC FHER.E. 209

the map ; but aloft over Imbros — aloft in a far-away
heaven was Samothrace, the watch-tower of Neptune.

'So Homer had appointed it, and so it was; the map
was correct enough, but could not, like Homer, convey
the tohole truth. Thus vain and false are the mere human
surmises and doubts which clash with Homeric writ.' 1

The critics of whom I have been speaking adopt this
serio-comic profession of faith in sober earnest, and, be-
cause in some cases the text of Homer is strikingly
verified by a comparison with extant topography, infer
that such verification is possible in all cases. The infer-
ence is quite unwarranted, not to mention that it assumes
by the way the identity of authorship for the Iliad and
Odyssey, the homogeneity of the former poem, and other
hypotheses which ought first to be proved. I may seem
to fall into a like error, and to be justly chargeable with
presumption, if I venture here to state generally the con-
clusion to which I have come respecting these vexed
questions without giving the arguments which support it.
But to do so at proper length would require more space
than I have to spare, and would inordinately expand this
already too long digression. I believe, then, that the
poet of the Mad was familiar with the scenery of the
plain of Troy, and, therefore, naturally and without con-
scious effort fitted his story to it, so far as regarded the
great unalterable features of the landscape ; but I do not
find any evidence that either the poet of the Iliad or the
poet of the Odyssey was personally familiar with the
scenery of Greece. How, then, it may be asked, do we

1 Eothen, pp. 46, 47. Fifth edition.
P

210 NOTES OF STUDY AND TBAVBL.

find so many cities of Greece always mentioned, each
with its own characteristic and descriptive adjective, for,
as Eratosthenes said, l Homer never throws an epithet
away V

As there were brave men before Agamemnon, so before
' Homer ' there lived and sang many minstrels in Greece.
Each city had its own heroes, and legends, and its own
bards to celebrate them. A multitude of smaller epics
have been absorbed in the Iliad and the Odyssey, and the
epithets attached unalienably to this city and that, are
among the relics of those perished songs. And the audi-
ence required no more. When the Homeric poems were
chanted at some gathering of Hellenic men the crowd
assuredly came ' to be interested not instructed/ and a
poet naturally gives as much licence to his invention as
his hearers will permit. They were too .much absorbed in
the tale to question its probability, and did not dream of
measuring the achievements of the mighty men of old by
the standard of their degenerate days, 1 but nevertheless
one may conceive that each man felt a thrill of pleasure
as he heard his own city mentioned, not without its just
meed of praise or distinctive mark. Thus the pride of a
casual Ithacan would be flattered by the words c rough,
but a right-good nurse of men/ applied to his beloved
island ; but the blind bard would not receive an obol the
less for saying that it was west, not east, of Cephalonia.
The greatest poet fetters his invention and clogs it with
facts only so far as the public exacts. Among the audience
which assembled at the Globe theatre one summer after-

oioi vvv (3poToi fieri.

KALAMATA THE HOMERIC P1IEK .E. 211

noon, a.d. j6ii, to hear a play called The Winter's Tale,
we may be sure that not one refused his applause because
the poet had converted Delphos into an island and given
Bohemia a sea-coast.

In the castle of Kalamata there is not so much as one
ancient stone to serve as text for this long sermon. The
hall of Diocles has perished ; but the castle which occupies
its site is the birthplace of a more renowned and more
historical hero, Guillaume de Yillehardouin, Prince of
Achaia, authentes, or seigneur of the !Morea, f cavaliere di
grande valore/ as Yillani calls him (vii. 26). Before suc-
ceeding to the principality he had held this district in
fief, and hither, at the close of his adventurous life, he
retired to die. 1 I climbed its crumbling battlements on
the evening of Easter-day, and watched the sun setting
behind the Messenian hills. When it was gone, the hills
were of a rich purple colour, with a fringe of incomparable
brightness, as if the deep sea of still calm light beyond
were breaking upon its earthly shore in a long line of re-
splendent surf. Gradually the flood of light ebbed; then
radiating bars rose-red shot up into the sky, and by-and-
bye faded into orange ; and as the colours above grew
paler and paler, the hills gloomed from purple to indigo,
from indigo to black, and were dwarfed by darkness.

A traveller has frequent occasion to remark that the
places most favourably situated for the ordinary business
of men furnish least material for the antiquary. This
castle of Kalamata is now, perhaps for the first time in
its long history, dismantled and abandoned. It, and the

Chronique de la Moree, p. 373.
p 2

212 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

town which it commands, must always have had a two-
fold importance as a military and as a commercial station.
The Spartans, until the spirit as well as the land of the
Messenians had been completely conquered, must have
maintained a garrison here, for it commands the plain,
and is at the foot of the most frequented pass into Laconia.
The Messenians, when they recovered their independence,
must have defended it as one of their most important fron-
tier fortresses. In later times it became of paramount con-
sequence as the key of the lowlands, the stronghold which
protected the level and fertile lands to the west against
the depredations of the Mainote tribes — those wild High-
landers of the Morea. It is true that when Guillaume
de Champlitte invaded the Morea, in one of the first years
of the thirteenth century, ' the place was scantily tenanted,
and was more like a convent than a fortress / ' but that was
at a time when the Greek empire was utterly paralysed,
and incapable of protecting peaceful industry or preserving
the least semblance of social order. As soon as the Franks
had reconstituted society, Kalamata at once resumed its
natural importance, and continued to be held with all
tenacity and watched with all vigilance till their final ex-
pulsion. Again, it must always have been a centre of
commerce, because the inconvenience of shipping agricul-
tural produce in an open roadstead is as nothing when
compared with the inconvenience and expense of conveying
it over rough mountains to any natural harbour on either
side of the gulf. Here a question arises : Why did not
Epaminondas choose this site for his new city of Messene?

Chronique de la Moree : Buchon, p. 1 28.

KALAMATA THE HOMERIC PHE1LE. 213

We may answer, first, that the religious feeling of the
people centred in Mount Ithome, the national sanctuary ;
secondly, that the security it afforded against attack was
far greater; and, thirdly, that at that time the export
trade was insignificant, and only became of importance
after the introduction of the silkworm, which, with its
prey the white mulberry-tree, thrives admirably in this
genial climate, and of the cotton plant, so suited to the
moist ground, and after the discovery of the great use to
which the Vallonia acorn, that abundant fruit of the
forest, may be applied in dyeing and tanning.

CHAPTER XIY.

NAVARINO.

TX7E took leave of our kind host, and started before
* seven on Monday morning. I transcribe the pro-
ceedings of the day from a note-book -which I carried in
my pocket, and a journal filled up that same evening : —
' Olive grounds, &c. ; then turn to the left over a marsh,
along a road, ■which must in wet weather be a very Slough
of Despond. Frequent streams, crossed by steep-pitched,
narrow bridges "without parapets. Ditches alive with
frogs, toads, water-snakes, &c. Cross a larger stream,
the ancient Pamisus, and get to the village of Nisi — one
hour forty minutes from Kalamata. This Nisi is on a
rising ground, a kind of c island' in the flat marsh —
"whence the name — just as so many places in the flat dis-
tricts of England have names ending in ' ey/ which means
the same thing. Saw two lambs roasting on horizontal
spits over a fire in full sunshine. A whole family sitting
round, turning the spits, patiently expectant of the Easter
feast. So intent were they on their "work that they hardly
looked up as we passed. How different their behaviour
from that of the fasting peasants of Xerokampo last
Thursday. In Lent the lesser passions, such as curiosity,
not being prohibited, have the man all to themselves, and
swell into the dimensions of vices. Afterwards, back

NAVARINO. 215

comes Gluttony (/cart'p^erat), and resumes his reign with
all the insolence of a restored tyrant. The other faction
go into exile and bide their time (eK-rreaovTEg ava^evovai).
Passing through the village, we waited, till the baggage
came up, beside a fountain among olive-trees. Sketched
Taygetus, seen sharp and clear in every line from sum-
mit to base. At half-past ten reached the river Velika
— a shallow, sandy stream fringed with willows, alders,
&c. Bathed under difficulties, and breakfasted under
a plane-tree. Taygetus still in view 5 but this time piled
high with bastions of white cloud, casting a deep purple
shadow on the slopes. 1 Remount at a quarter to one.
Shrub-covered hills. At ten minutes past two come to
the edge of a forest. Alexander at a standstill. Hire
a peasant, at work in a neighbouring field, to guide our
guide. This is our first specimen of real forest scenery —
hanging woods, rich with varied green, dashed with bright
pink. 2 Cross a river at a quarter to three. At half-past
three halt for twenty minutes under a huge oak on a hill-
side. Open ground to the east ; then a strip of blue sea,
backed by Taygetus, visible from here all its length to
Tseuarus, sprinkled with white Mainote hamlets. Trees on
all other sides : oak, ilex, maple ; shrubs and plants : large
lentisks, arbutus, myrtle, dwarf holly, clematis, cistus, white

1 It brought to my mind the grand line of Milton — ' And hills of
snow and lofts of piled thunder' — written in vacation time at Cam-
bridge, at the age of nineteen, long before he had seen Alp or Apen-
nine, when he had known no higher mountain than Highgate or the
Gogmagogs.

2 This I found afterwards to be due to the flowers of the Judas-
tree, which abounds hereabouts.

216 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

heather, white lupin, yellow furze and broom. The latter
part of the forest all oaks. We emerge at five, by rocky
paths. A dilapidated causeway. Twilight. Reach Nava-
rino at half-past seven.'

As soon as we arrived we inquired for the eparch, pre-
sented our potent circular letter, and were forthwith in-
stalled in a large empty room. First the eparch's wife,
then himself, and then the secretary came to sit with us,
succeeding each other on duty. It was evidently a point
of politeness not to leave us by ourselves. Like etiquette
in general, it was rather a bore to all parties. Hungry,
weary, and indisposed to talk, we were right glad to be
left alone at last.

Next morning we hired a boat, and sailed with a light,
fair wind, in forty minutes, to Palaio Xavarino, the site of
one famous campaign and many obscure controversies.
And first for the controversies. Is this the Homeric
Pylos, the city of Nestor ? The testimony of antiquity is
all but unanimous in the affirmative, from Pindar to
Pausanias, either expressly or by implication. But there
were on the same side of the Peloponnese two other towns
of the same name ; and the patriotism of the inhabitants
would of course lead them to maintain — with or without
reason, as the fashion of local antiquaries is — that theirs
was the true Pylos. The claim of the Pylos near Elis is
easily disproved ; indeed, in Pausanias's time, they only
asserted that their Pylos was meant by Homer when he
said, ' The Alpheus flows with broad stream through the
land of the Pylians.-' 1 The claim of the Triphylian Pylos

1 II. v. 545-

A y A A

.....

/'/,</,. J.

H .'I I'rulp.

London .John W. Parka- k Son ,445,Wist Strand* ,

NAVARINO. 217

is advocated at great length by Strabo, who urges that the
cattle-lifting exploit of Nestor 1 could not have been per-
formed, supposing him to drive his booty all the way from
Elis to the Messenian Pylos. But, as Col. Leake shows,
the distance is still too great to be reconciled with the
narrative; and truly there is not much to choose between
different degrees of impossibility. Besides, on Strabo's
hypothesis, the story of Telemachus's driving to Sparta in
two days is rendered still more improbable, and makes his
halting at Pherae inexplicable. As I have before said,
whenever we attempt to make the geography of Homer
square with hard facts, we lose our labour, and only clear
up one difficulty by introducing another. This much is
certain, that the name Pylos is applied by the poet both
to the city where Nestor lived and the country over which
he reigned ; and the epithet ' sandy ' is applied to both,
just as ' horse-feeding Argos' is applied both to the city
and the plain. Pylos, in this latter sense, must have
covered a great space in the poet's mental map, for some
of Nestor's followers lived beside a ford over the Alpheus,
and certain cities on the Messenian gulf 2 were by the
borders of ' sandy Pylos/ The number of ships, too,
which Nestor commanded, only ten fewer than the fleet
of Agamemnon — ninety, that is to say — points to the
same conclusion. That the poet knew or cared how far
the city was from the frontier, I do not believe. No
fresh light can be thrown on the subject. There certainly
was an ancient city called Pylos, believed by its inhabi-
tants and the Greeks in general to be the city of Nestor,

1 II. x. 669. * lb. ix. 149.

218 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

on the site now called Palaio Navarino, and time has set-
tled the controversy in its favour by obliterating all vestiges
of its two rivals. That it was rightly called l sandy' there
can be no question. The epithet, too, is applicable to the
whole country along the coast as far as the Alpheus.

But a more definite interest attaches to this barren
promontory as the chief scene of the campaign so graphi-
cally told by Thucydides, 1 which resulted in the capture
of the four hundred Spartans. Even on this point our
steps are clogged by a controversy, and our pleasure is
like to be marred by a doubt. We cannot enjoy our be-
lief without fighting for it. All the world had been
agreed as to which was Sphacteria and which Cory-
phasium, where Demosthenes made his gallant defence,
and where he and Cleon captured the Spartans, till Dr.
Arnold started a new theory. He maintained that the
ruins of Palaio Navarino really stand upon what was
then the island of Sphacteria, since converted into a
peninsula by a recent formation of sand, and conse-
quently Pylos, or Coryphasium, was a point to the
north on the other side of the little harbour now
called Boidio Koilia. His great objection to the received
theory was, that Thucydides's statements as to the length
of the island and the breadth of the two entrances into the
harbour were much below the truth. This is certainly a
difficulty ; but it sinks into nothing compared with the
difficulties which are to be overcome before Dr. Arnold's
theory can be accepted. As Mr. Grote has observed,
Thucydides's narrative presumes the existence of one
island only in the neighbourhood ; for when the Athenian

1 Thuc. b. iv. 2, sqq.

NAYAR1NO. 219

fleet found Sphacteria occupied by the enemy, they had to
retire to Prote. It is clear, too, that there was only one
island of any magnitude, then, in Pausanias's time. ' The
island of Sphacteria lies in front of the harbour, as Rheneia
before the anchorage of Delos.'

Again, Sphacteria was always desert, as Thucydides says,
while in Palaio Navarino there are unmistakeable traces of
a city of high antiquity. On the promontory to the
north there are no traces of habitation at all. This last
would never have been selected by Demosthenes as the
most defensible spot on the coast, for it is not defended
by high abrupt cliffs to the landward side, as is Palaio
Navarino. But, lastly, there is an objection utterly fatal
to Dr. Arnold's hypothesis, which, strange to say, has not
been yet noticed, so far as I know. According to his
theory, the harbour would have had three entrances instead
of tioo. In his anxiety to find two entrances narrow
enough for the Spartans to close with lines of ships (as it
is said they thought of doing), he has forgotten that he
has left the largest entrance open for the Athenians to
sail in. Assuming, then, the truth of the old view, we
have to account for the discrepancies between the actual
measurements and those given by Thucydides. His words
are (b. iv. c. 8) : ' The island called Sphacteria, stretch-
ing across the harbour, and lying close to it, makes it
secure and the entrances narrow ; on the one side, over
against the Athenian wall and Pylos, sailing room for two
ships abreast ; and on the other side, towards the other
part of the mainland, room for eight or nine ; and it was
woody and untracked, being desert, and in length about
fifteen stades, more or less. These entrances the Lace-

220 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

dsemonians intended to close by mooring their ships with
the bows foremost/ Now it does not appear from any
part of the narrative that the historian had himself visited
the place. In the preface to his work he tells us that he
made diligent inquiries among the actors in the war, but
he does not hint that he took any pains to inspect the
localities personally. His information on this matter was
secondhand, and the distances were guessed at by his in-
formants. There is, as I have before said, a natural ten-
dency in men to under-estimate distances on desert ground
and by sea, when there are no marked objects of known size
to enable them to form a just judgment by the eye. He
similarly understates the width of the straits nearNaupactus
(b. ii. c. 86). With regard to the length of the island, too,
the number kV (25) may easily have been corrupted in the
manuscripts to 1 V (15). A similar instance of error occurs
in the same narrative where, according to our present test,
he states the distance from Sparta to Pylos at four hundred
stadia, about forty-five and a half miles. The distance,
supposing the ordinary road over Taygetus to have passed
then, as now, by Kastania, must have been nearly seventy
miles. It is possible that the transcribers may have mis-
read y ' for v', and the true reading may have given six
hundred stades, i.e., a little over sixty-eight miles. Again,
the action of the waves has no doubt widened both en-
trances. In the northern one particularly, I observed
rocks fallen into the water which have at no distant period
been attached to the shore ; but, making all allowance on
this score, it is impossible to suppose that the width
Thucydides assigns to them could have been enlarged to
their present dimensions of one hundred and fifty and four-

XAVARIXO. 221

teen hundred yards respectively. It must be observed,
however, that the Spartans never did close them by moor-
ing ships, and secondhand information as to what they
intended to do caunot be implicitly trusted. It is, I think,
clear, moreover, that Thucydides derived his information
chiefly from the Athenian side, from some one present
among the soldiers of Demosthenes ; for their proceedings
are detailed with the minute touches of an eye-witness,
and we only know of the Spartan proceedings what might
have been observed first from Pylos and afterwards on
board the Athenian fleet. It is difficult, too, to see how
they could ever have closed the northern entrance in the
manner supposed, exposed as they would have been to
missiles from the Athenians on the wall.

Agreeing in this with Colonel Leake and other writers,
I do not agree with them in supposing the ancient har-
bour to have been on the northern edge coincident exactly
with the modern one, and the marsh of Osman Aga a level
plain ; for if so, why did not the land force of the Lacedae-
monians attack the wall towards the harbour, at the foot
of which there was a level space — c good landing ground V
Yet we find that this part of the wall, with the ground
beloAv, was only accessible by sea (c. 13). I conceive, then,
that the old harbour must have extended over a consi-
derable part of the present marsh, and must have washed
the base of the precipitous cliff which forms the eastern
side of Pylos, thus preventing the land troops from at-
tacking the wall at the south-eastern corner towards the
harbour. The level ground and good landing-place below
was probably formed by the sand -bank, then in course of
formation, which now extends right across to the hills,

222 XOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

separating the harbour from the marsh. Here it was that
these besieged ' dug through the shingle to get at such
water as they were likely to find there/ The Athenian
wall was high at this point ; not because they expected an
attack there any more than from the sea-board, but be-
cause they had a base of steep rock some ten or twelve
feet high to build upon. It is evident that the marsh is
now being filled up by drifting sand and the detritus of
streams, and not deepening year by year, as it probably
would if it had been a recent formation ; indeed, all ex-
ternal testimony goes to prove that it is no such thing.
In the Livre de la Conqueste, written before 1346 a. d., we
find that the harbour of Navarino was called by the
French ' Port de Junch/ no doubt from the reedy
marsh which formed part of it. 1 The Lacedsemonian
troops, which attacked from the land side, must have
directed their efforts against the wall built along the
steep slope towards the north-western side of the hill ; but
so difficult was the approach, that they made no impres-
sion ; they are hardly mentioned in the story. Close to
the place where the Athenians dug for brackish water, a
well has been sunk, probably by the Franks who built the
castle. The water is excellent. Accompanied by one of
our sailors, called Timocleon, we made a tour of the pro-
montory. At the south-west corner, facing the open sea,
is a piece of comparatively level ground, edged with a
border of rugged, sharp-edged rocks shelving down into
the water — the pa\ut of the historian. On the inner side
of these Demosthenes had built his wall ; and here Brasidas

1 Ed. Buchon, p. 4 r .

\ AVAR I NO. 223

ran his ship ashore, and made his desperate efforts to land.
Here the spear struck him as he stepped upon the landing-
plank.

"We then climbed up to the medieval castle which
crowns the summit. It is of vast size, with an outei'
and an inner court built with rough stones and mortar
filled in with small pebbles. We saw nowhere any
trace of the Hellenic walls of which the French surrey
speaks, but we found their plan so grossly inaccurate in
other points, that we did not set much store by their as-
sertion on this. "We descended by a steep and even dan-
gerous path to a cave on the north side ; no doubt the
cave described by Pausanias as being within the city,
where Xeleus used to keep his cows. It is also famous
in legend as being the cave where Hermes hid the herd
stolen from Apollo ; a precocious manifestation of divine
power commemorated in the ode of Horace beginning
' Mercuri facunde/ Below this are remains of Avails, both
Cyclopean and Hellenic, plain for all folk to see, but
scarcely indicated by the French survey. I found one
stone seven feet by three and three. There are two oblong
cisterns hewn in the rocks by the shore, and five or six
flights of steps leading down to the little harbour of
Boidio Koilia. The innermost rim of the harbour is a
bank of loose sand. Between this and the marsh grow
scattered bushes of lentisk and juniper and a few tufts of
coarse grass. I counted seventy fine cattle, such as would
have charmed Neleus or Hermes, though it was a mystery
to me how with such pasture they got so fat.

On our return we landed on Sphacteria, and walked the
length of the island. It is still wooded in places ; I saw

224 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

lentisks, wild olives, and ilex, some as much as ten or
twelve feet in height. The mischievous habit, so
common in modern Greece, of burning the trees in order
to improve the next year's grass, prevents them from
attaining their natural growth. In the level ground
where the Spartan camp must have been we found a
shepherd with his flock. There is a well nine fathoms
deep, into which he let down his leathern bucket and
gave us water ; it was slightly sweet, not unpleasant to
the taste. Every part of Thucydides's story, as to the final
capture of the four hundred, can be identified on this still
desert and unchanged island. Here the Helots ran their
boats on shore when they brought provisions over-night ;
here the Athenians landed ; here the Messenians crept
round under the cliffs unperceived, to take the Spartans
in the rear ; here they made their final stand, and at last
waved their hands in token of surrender. No scepticism,
no counter-theory can hold its ground after a visit to the
place.

We were an hour and a half in recrossing the har-
bour, tacking this way and that, obliged at last to row.

The name Navarino, made so familiar to modern Europe
by the great battle of the 20th October, 1827, comes from
Avarino, eg tov Afiaplvov, corrupted 'Nafiaplvo. 1 Avarino
is generally supposed to be derived from the settlement of
a colony of Avars ; those Normans of an earlier time,
who, with the aid of the Sclavonians, their subject allies,
conquered the greater part of the Peloponnese at the close

1 So, vice versa, vdpdrjij is corrupted into ap8r)£: And so from the
old English a ncdder comes the modern English an adder.

NAVARINO. 225

of the sixth century of our era. 1 In the time of Heraclius
' the Avars made considerable exertions to complete the
conquest of Greece ; and attempting to carry their predatory
expeditions into the Archipelago, they attacked the eastern
coast of Greece, which had hitherto been secure from their
invasions. In order to execute this design, they obtained
ship-builders from the Lombards, and launched a fleet of
plundering barks in the ^Igean/ 2 Very probably this
"was the very harbour from which their piratical armament
issued. It was conveniently placed for communication
with their Lombard allies, and near to an inexhaustible
supply of timber for ship-building. But I venture to
propose another derivation of the name as at least plau-
sible. We have no authority for saying that any Avars
settled here ; and we do know, on the authority of the
Livre de la Conqueste, that Nicolas de Saint Omer built,
at the close of the thirteenth century, the great castle
whose ruins still crown the summit. ' Cellui Monseignor
Nicole estoit moult gentils horns, estrays de roial lignage
et fu riches desmcsurement dou grant avoir que il prist
k la princesse d'Antioche ; de quoi il fist fermer le noble
chastel de Saint Omer pardevant la cite d'Estives (vid.
Thebes) qui fu le plus beau et riche mauoir de toute
Romanie .... Et puis ferma le chastel de port de
lunch' (p. 274) ; and to make it quite certain that the
last words refer to the castle in question, the Romaic
translation gives —

kcu /xerot ravra eKTiaev to Kacrrpov rov Aftaplvov.

The castle which he built at Thebes was, as we see,

1 Finlay, Greece under the Romans, p. 418. a Ibid. p. 420.

Q

226 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

called after his own name ; and similarly a castle which
his nephew and namesake built in the hills near Elis, was
called after its founder, and corrupted by the Greeks into
Santamermo. Now, dropping the ( Sant/ we have a word
so like Afiapivo, that I cannot but think this to be the
true derivation of the name. Few would at first sight
suspect the connexion between Navarino and Saint Omer.
The castle was seized and occupied in the fifteenth
century by the Turks. It was supplied with water by an
aqueduct constructed probably by the same noble and
prudent lord ; but kept in repair, as it appears, by the
Turks of the seventeenth century. The year after the
battle of Lepanto (1572), the Turks built the fort of New
Navarino at the point which had now become, in a mili-
tary sense, the key of the harbour. The northern entrance
had been gradually silting up, and the Turks helped to
make it impassable by throwing in large stones. The
other entrance, wide as it was, could be commanded by
cannon from the fort. In 1656 the old fortress, in which
they still maintained a garrison, because the guns of an
enemy in possession of the post would command the har-
bour, was attacked by the Venetians and their foreign
mercenaries, under the command of Otto Kcenigsmark,
' the uncle of his nephew ' Marshal de Saxe. ' Being de-
pendent/ says Mr. Finlay, 1 ' for its supply of water on an
aqueduct, it immediately capitulated/ This was an ex-
cuse invented by the Turks to palliate their cowardice.
Even Avhen the aqueduct was cut off, they had still a well
of good pure water. New Navarino surrendered soon
after, without any excuse whatever.

1 History of G-reece, vol. v. p. 215.

NAVARINO. 227

The Venetians evacuated Navarino on the approach of
the Turks in 17 15, when the latter, to the great joy of the
Greek peasantry, reconquered the Morea. The Russians
received a still warmer welcome when they occupied
Navarino in 1770, in their foolish expedition to revo-
lutionize Greece. They soon abandoned their deluded
allies to the tender mercies of Turks and Albanians, and
in the treaty of Kainardji, j 7 74, merely stipulated for an
amnesty without making any provision to ensure its ful-
filment. With all its military importance and its splendid
harbour, Navarino is a place of no traffic. The country
about is chiefly forest and pasture land ; there are no
practicable roads ; and so Kalamata engrosses all the
export trade of Messenia. A more lifeless place I never
saw. A German doctor, who passed an evening with us,
complained bitterly. He had held an appointment under
government, and been deprived of it by the law against
aliens passed by the successful revolutionists of 1843.
Since then he vegetated rather than lived among an
unfriendly people, who prefer being poisoned by orthodox
quackery to being healed by heretical science.

The case of these poor Germans is a very hard one,
and merits the attention of his majesty Louis of Bavaria,
by the infection of whose Philhellenism they were induced
to try their fortune in Greece, not calculating on the bitter
miso-Frankism of the inhabitants.

Q 2

CHAPTER XV.

VOURKAMO MESSENE MAVROZOUMEXO.

A PRIL 30. — We left Navarino at six o'clock, and taking
-*-*- the road by which we had come two days before,
reached the forest at half-past eight, and halted for break-
fast at ten. We chose a shady oak close to a guard-
house, which is the head-quarters of a detachment of
nomophylakes — the rural police, or mounted gens-d'armes
of Greece. Two of these functionaries accompanied us to
show the way; for the route now diverged from our
former track, and was as new to our dragoman as to our-
selves. The way was indeed exceedingly difficult to find,
and puzzled even the gens-d'armes more than once. After
getting out of the wood, we had to cross a succession of
low ridges, divided by streams running between steep
banks covered with thick bushes. Nothing like a path
was to be seen. Here and there were patches of cultiva-
tion, but we did not come to any village till five in the
afternoon. The multitude of Judas-trees all in flower,
and the rich red of the broken earth-banks, contrasted
with the various green tints of herbage and foliage, gave
to the landscape a fantastic patchwork look such as would
not be credited in a picture. Our course was further
hindered by the repeated tumbles of a wretched overladen
baggage horse, and it was growing dark while we were still

VOURKAMO MESSENE — 1IAVROZOUMENO. 229

scrambling over a rocky hill-side without having any rest-
ing-place in prospect. Suddenly we came upon a huge
ruined wall, and we found ourselves on the site of Messene.
We had, indeed, passed over it without being aware, and
were now at c the gate of Laconia/ A steep path to the
right led down to the convent of Vourkamo, where we
were to pass the night. There was a considerable pre-
liminary difficulty in finding the door — then a parley
through the keyhole. ' Tines eisthe V ' Who are you V
said a voice from within. — ' Angloi/ said we. — ' Lordoi/
added Alexander, for thus the dragoman designates all
foreign tourists ; and we were forthwith admitted.

A wild -looking monk, with long black hair and beard
and gown, candle in hand, conducted us to the room
set apart for guests — a large bare room upstairs with a
divan, or, in Yorkshire phrase, a settle, covered with carpet
at each end. Here we were visited by the abbot and all
the brethren, and treated with sweetmeats, coffee, and
liqueur. Our arrival gave evident pleasure. It was a
break in the monotony of life at Vourkamo. We asked
and answered many questions. In the monastery, we
were told, there are fifteen regular monks or ' caloyers/ '
and counting the lay brethren and dependent peasants —
georgoi and poimenes — sixty persons in all attached to
the establishment. The building, as we found next morn-
ing, is in a beautiful situation, on the steep slope of Aio
Vasili, the ancient Euan, looking over the rich, well-
watered plain of Messenia, with the sea to the right and

1 ' Caloyer,' i. e. icakoyepos, a barbarous compound of Kcikos ye'pw
and meaning ' monk.' (y in modern Greek before e and t has the
sound of y nearly.)

230 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

serried ranks of mountains in front and on the left. Like
all convents in Greece, the building, as an achievement of
architecture, does not satisfy the expectations raised by the
ruins and traditions of the monasteries of Western Europe.
Outside all is strong and solid, inside all is mean and
rickety, as if it had been built with a double purpose of
resisting the violence and not tempting the cupidity of
brigands or other constituted authorities. Outside, one
doubts whether it is most like a barn or a jail, inside our
comparativeness halts between a khan and a college. There
is a quadrangle with a church on one side, and on the other
three an upper and lower range of cells, with a wooden
balcony all along. The convent is almost enclosed with
an orchard and a grove of maples and cypresses. One of
the hangers-on of the place is a poor idiot who was always
' mopping and mowing' in the court, and whenever he caught
sight of a stranger ran up to him with a sudden outbreak
of gabble and grimace. These unfortunate people are
treated with peculiar tenderness in Greece — at least so far
as my observation went j and that not from pity or per-
sonal fear, but from a kind of superstitious reverence.
This same reverence was strongly felt by the ancient
Greeks, notwithstanding their habit of pelting mad people
with stones. 1 Further experience would probably have

Arist. Aves, 525. Peisthetserus stimulates the dormant esprit
de corps of the birds, by relating the indignities they suffer at the
hands of men — ' They actually go the length of pelting you as they
do mad people.' I have more than once observed in an English
village, that the favourite amusement of the children was throwing
stones at an idiot. The Tyrolese, too, who have the reputation of
being a friendly and kindly people, sometimes treat their cretins with
revolting cruelty.

VOURKAMO MESSENE MAVROZOUMENO. 231

shown that in modern Greece, too, the treatment of
lunatics is not uniformly tender. A madman is always a
stranger — no length of habit can make him familiar; we
may pity him and even tolerate his presence, but we can-
not sympathize with, or love him. He is always regarded
with awe, fear, pity, and distrust ; and among educated folk
treated with uniform care, prompted by a mixture of these
feelings. The ruder a people are, the more distinct are
their impulses, the more fickle their conduct; hence, by
children and rustics the unhappy madman is alternately
worshipped and pelted. I think within the walls of the
Panaghia at Vourkamo, among the grave fathers, poor
Andreopoulos is safe from the latter fate. Before taking
leave we had again to partake of preserves and liqueur with
the Hegoumenos (or abbot). In return for the shelter
and hospitality of the convent, every stranger who can
afford it is expected to make a donation, as at the St.
Bernard. One of the brethren asks you to come and see
the church, and particularly directs your attention to a
picture of the Panaghia which you cannot look at without
seeing the poor-box below. After we had started for
Messene we met a stout old gentleman in splendid attire,
riding an equally stout cob. This proved to be the
demarch of that ilk, who, having received notice of our
visit from the nomarch at Kalamata, was on his way to
make an early call upon us; one more instance of that
Greek courtesy which we rarely, if ever, found to fail.

The walls of Messene are the most perfect example extant
of Grecian fortification on a large scale. Thanks also to
Diodorus, Pausanias, and others, we know the date, the
motive, the manner of their erection, and the very cere-

232 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

monies employed in celebrating the completion of the
work. Additional interest is given to them by the fact
that the great mover and director of the undertaking was
Epaminondas, whose gentleness, bravery, and magnani-
mity made him the most chivalrous character of ancient
Greece and the favourite of all modern times ; like Bayard,
' without fear and without reproach/ but greater than
Bayard, because, in addition to unflinching courage and
unstained honour, he had the skill of a consummate
general, the wisdom of a far-seeing statesman, and that
highest quality of all — which results from the harmonious
combination of all other high qualities — power over the
minds of men.

' The city is encompassed not by Tthome only, but also
by Mount Euan on the side turned towards the Pamisus.
Bound Messene is a wall. The whole circuit is made of
stone, and there are towers and battlements built in it.
Now I never saw the walls of Babylon or Susa, nor ever
spoke with any person Avho had seen them, but the best
fortifications I have seen are those of Ambrysus in Phocis,
and Byzantium, and Bhodes, and the Messenian wall is
stronger than any of them.' 1 Standing by the so-called
gate of Laconia, we are on a slight depression in the ridge
which joins the south-eastern corner of Mount Ithome to
the north-eastern of Mount Euan. The walls run along
this ridge as it rises towards Mount Euan, and then turn
sharp off", leaving the upper part of that hill outside. The
words of Pausanias are strictly correct." On the other

1 Paus. iv. 31, 5.
2 Colonel Leake remarks (Travels in Peloponnesus, i. p. 293),
There is one passage and one only in the description of Messene by

VOURKAMO MESSENE MAVROZOUMENO. 233

end of the ridge the wall turns at right angles, and climbs
the steep side of Ithome till it is rendered at once impos-
sible and unnecessary by a perpendicular rock. At the
top of this rock it recommences, and is furnished, not with
towers at intervals, but with buttresses, like those of the
peribolus below the temple of Zeus-Olympius at Athens.
Along the ridge is an inner wall, not quite parallel to the
other. Another Avail runs from the gate of Laconia along
the foot of Mount Ithome ; the object of which doubtless
was to afford another place of refuge, and a new line of
defence in case the lower city were taken. This wall has
been furnished with apparently circular towers ; or, per-
haps, the bases only were circular and the towers square,
as was the case in the Peiraic wall. To the right of the
gate is a tower about nine feet square, with door two and
a half feet wide, window, and embrasure. Some six feet

Pausanias which I cannot reconcile with actual appearances. He
says, if I have rightly understood his words, that the circuit of the
city comprehended a part of Mount Euan towards the Pamisus,
whereas the existing walls strongly testify that no part of Euan was
included in the city, nor even any part of Ithome towards the Pa-
misus. May it have been, that before the time of Pausanias the
Messenians had partly abandoned the old enclosure and built houses
on the slope of Mount Euan ? or is there not rather some corruption
in the author's text ?' It seems to me that the author's words are
both free from corruption and consonant with the facts of the case.
Here they are, Trepie^Tai ov rfj idcofxj] povov aWa km. eVt rbv Hapicrov
to. rerpap.piva vivo ttjs ~Evdv. The word nepu^eTat does not imply
that either mountain was within tbe city, though undoubtedly a part
of both was. Almost the same phrase is used with respect to Phi-
galia (viii. 41, 5) : irepu-^eraL 8e f] $>iya\ia opecriv iv dpiaTepq pzv
vtto tov KaXovpevov KorwXt'ov .... current 8e ttjs Trokecos is recraa-
paKovra to KotvXiov paXicrra o-radiovs. Phigalia is encompassed with
mountains which are four miles outside the walls.

23 i NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

above the present level of rubbish are holes for beams,
intended to support an upper floor. From this point a
steep and stony path leads to the top of Ithome. We
took our horses, but dismounted in pity for them, and
walked. On the north side of the summit is some poly-
gonal masonry supporting an earthbank, which may per-
haps belong to the ancient citadel of Ithome — the Ithome
of Aristomenes. The Hellenic walls and square stones of
the temple have doubtless been used in the construction
of the now-deserted metoki, a branch establishment be-
longing to the monks at Vourkamo. On this very site
probably stood the temple where Aristomenes sacrificed
his offering of thanksgiving for having slain an hundred
foes to Zeus-Ithomates. There are a few fragments of
marble in the walls.

The view from this point is very wide and very grand.
The hills of Arcadia lie, like the seats of a stadium, about
the flat Messenian plains, and to the south-east are pro-
longed in the great ridge of Taygetus stretching far into
the sea. Near the top is a well of no great depth, in
which is a spring of perennial water. This, and not the foun-
tain of Mavrornati, I take to be the Klepsydra mentioned
by Pausanias. In the Agora he says there is a fountain
called Arsinoe, and water flows underground to it from
the source called Klepsydra (iv. 31, 5). Then, in the
beginning of the thirty-third chapter : ' As you come to
the summit of Ithome, which is the Acropolis, there is a
source called Klepsydra. Every day they carry water
from that source to the temple of Zeus-Ithomates.' The
word 7niyr}, here translated ' source/ is used by Pausanias
in the sense of a natural spring, whether at the bottom

VOUBKAMO — MESSEXE — UAVBOZOUMENO. 235

of a well or appearing on the surface. The word ic\c\pvSoa,
whose general signification was already so obsolete that in
each case a local legend was invented to account for the
name, is doubtless applied here, as at Athens and else-
where, to denote a well of which the water sank at times
below the usual level without any apparent outlet. A
rainy or a drouthy season affords a natural explanation ;
but the Greek fancy was particularly struck with the
notion of subterraneous watercourses, and they firmly
convinced themselves of such communication even when
circumstances made it much more improbable than at
Ithome. Kpy]ur] is always applied to an artificial foun-
tain, whether the water has been brought from a distance
in pipes or issues from the ground immediately behind
the structure. Hence, in accordance wdth the words of
Pausanias, I believe that the well near the summit was
the Klepsydra, and the fountain of Mavromati was the
fountain of the Agora, then masked by stone-work. The
revolted Messenians, who held Ithome against the Lace-
daemonians, must have been supplied from the upper well.
They could not have had access to the fountain at Mavro-
mati. The use of this particular water in sacred rites
must have rested on an immemorial and uninterrupted
custom. Besides, we find that an especial sanctity was
always attached to springs on the tops of isolated heights,
as in the Aero-Corinth and the Acropolis of Athens. Their
preciousness and rarity made them seem the direct gift of
gods. The Agora of the later city must have been near
the site of the present village — the most convenient situa-
tion for the country people, whether they came from the
gate of Laconia or that of Megalopolis.

236 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

The name Mavromati, /navpov o^ifxanov, black eye, is
not an uncommon term for springs of water. The com-
parison of a liquid pool fringed with lashes of fern, and
overtopped by a brow of shrubs, making a break in the
blank, bare hill-side to the human eye, is a touch of
natural poetry for which the Greeks are indebted to an
eastern source. The Turks also call springs ' eyes/ The
author of the Song of Songs says, ' Her eyes are like the
fishpools of Heshbon/ The epithet ' black/ so often
applied to water, indicates its clearness. We find black
water, fxk\av v<$a>p, constantly in Homer and the Greek
poets. It is true we find bright water, ayXaou vSujp, also.
The same water which in the light is most transparent is
blackest in the shade, being naturally colourless and pure.
I am told that the Irish peasants, whose language is so
rich in implicit poetry, use c black water' in the same
sense. Below the village are the remains of a theatre,
and further on those of a stadium, constructed in the
hollow made by the rivulet from Mavromati, which, as in
so many other cases, has now resumed its natural course,
and flows right through it. Tamen usque recurret. There
were stone seats on either side of the stadium, somewhat
more than half its length. We have observed the same
thing at Nemea. Probably the upper part of the stadium
was used also for wrestling and pugilistic contests, for
witnessing which the whole length, 202 yards, could not
be available. On either side and at the end was a colon-
nade, which probably included the gymnasium also. In
these columns the fluting is merely indicated, and left
unfinished. At the further end are the ruins of a small
Doric temple, like the colonnade, of white marble. Here

VOURKAMO MESSENE MAVKOZOUMENO. 237

the fluting is perfect. On the western side of the stadium
are the foundations of another building in white marble,
resting on the red schistous rock which comes to the
surface in many places on the site of the lower city.
Attached to the French map which we had with us was
a plan of Messene, in which, among other inaccuracies,
the stadium was drawn as if its length were 100 metres
only, that is, half its real size.

We were very much pestered with shepherds' dogs while
examining these ruins, not for the first time. These animals
have incurred the malediction of all travellers in the Morea,
but I never heard an authentic instance of their biting any
one. Nothing can be ' waur' in its way than their bark.
Their owners are slow to call them off, for fear of con-
fusing their ideas of duty. They resemble a cross between
an English sheep-dog and a mastiff. We tried more than
once the artifice of the wily Ulysses 1 — the simple ex-
pedient of sitting down — in which case the creatures sat
down also in a ring and howled at intervals.

The western side of the old city is now thickly overgrown
with wood. We passed a building apparently Roman on
our way to the great gate, called by Pausanias the gate of
Megalopolis. This much-famed gate is the most colossal
and interesting relic of Hellenic antiquity in all the Morea.
The street leading up to it from the inside is still paved
with the old stones, marked longitudinally with cart-wheels,

1 Homer, Odyss. xiv. 29, sqq.

e^cnrivTjs 5' 'OBvcrrja i8ov Kvves vXaKopcopoi'

ol fiev KeitkrjyovTes eweftpapov' avrap '08v(rcrevs

e£(TO KepSoavvr], (jKrynrpov hk ol eWecre ^ftpdy.

238 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

and still retaining the transverse cuts which afforded foot-
ing for the horses up the steep hill. On the inner side are
two gates, each eight feet five inches in width, separated
by a wall four feet ten inches wide. Entering, you find
yourself in a circular space, surrounded with walls of the
most perfect masonry, large stones in regular courses ad-
mirably fitted together, except where the roots of oaks
and wild carob-trees have thrust them apart. We found
a party of workmen clearing away the wood by order of
the nomarch ; a good deed, for which he deserves the
thanks of future travellers. The outer gate is single,
sixteen feet ten inches across; exactly double the width
of each of the inner gates. A stone, which has served for
one of the architraves of the inner gates, we found by
measurement to be fourteen feet three inches long, seven
and a half feet high, and two and a half feet thick. The
workmen of Epaminondas outdid the Cyclopeans. The
wall is here more perfect than in any other part of the
circuit. Built of white limestone, without a weather-stain
or a lichen, it looked as fresh as if it were in process of
building. It required an effort of the imagination to
believe that it had been standing two thousand two hun-
dred and twenty-five years. The thickness of the wall
near the gate seems to have been partly left vacant for
chambers, partly filled up with earth and the chips of
stone left by the masons. The top is accessible from the
inside by steps made at intervals. Not far off is a tower,
measuring in the interior nineteen and a half by eighteen
and a half feet. This tower, like that which I have men-
tioned near the gate of Laconia, has had an upper story.
About seven and a half feet above the floor are eight holes

VOURKAMO MES8ENE MAVROZOUMENO. 239

in the wall, intended for the beams which were to support
a second floor. There are no signs of a staircase, so it
must have been accessible by a ladder. This upper story
was furnished with six windows, two on each side, except
that towards the town, and four embrasures to shoot out
of, narrowing towards the outside. Each window is still
furnished with four holes for fastening the shutters. 3f .
Rangabe, the accomplished Minister of Foreign Affairs,
told me afterwards at Athens that he had discovered in
the woods near this gate a Cyclopean tower, not belonging
of course to these fortifications, and not mentioned by any
writer. About half a mile beyond the gate there is a
little rivulet bordered with plane-trees, which had been
fixed upon in the morning as the place of rendezvous with
the cook. Hither we went to lunch, and returned after-
wards to the wonderful gate. The wall is prolonged east-
ward up the side of Ithome, like the wall on the opposite
side of the mountain, till it comes to the base of a per-
pendicular rock. On this side the lower slopes of the
hill are covered with oak woods, whose foliage contrasts
well with the white crags above. The strata of the moun-
tain, which on the east and south side are violently con-
torted, appear on this — the west — side nearly vertical.
"We left Messene about five, and reached the bridge of
Mavrozoumeno in about an hour. On the way we met a
group of peasant girls, who gave and returned the Easter
salutation. At this season the ordinary greeting \aiipe,
' hail/ is exchanged for Xpt^roc aviarij, ' Christ is risen/
and the reply aXrjOivojg avsarr), ' He is risen indeed.' The
Russians, too, say ' Christos voscress' on the same occa-
sion ; so that it seems to be an established custom in the

240 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

Eastern Church, oue of the few which commend themselves
to Western tastes and feelings as beautiful and edifying.

' After one has descended thirty stades from the gate
is the stream of the Balyra, and they say that the river
got its name because Thamyris there threw away his lyre
after he had been maimed (i.e. blinded by the Muses).
And the Leucasia and Amphitos join their streams in
one. And after crossing these there is the plain called
Stenycleron/ 1 There is some difficulty in identifying the
streams here mentioned. I am inclined to think that the
Balyra is the stream which you cross about a quarter of a
mile on this side the bridge. The geographer, or rather
mythographer, as his practice is, devotes his space to it not
in proportion to its size, but on account of the legend at-
tached to it. There can be no doubt that the legend has
taken its rise from the name, not the name from the
legend. Else we should have to suppose that the Balyra
flowed by Dorion, the scene which Homer assigns for the
meeting of Thamyris with the envious Muses, who ' stopped
his singing' by putting out his eyes. 2 Pausanias ration-
alizes the legend by supposing that Thamyris was deprived
of sight by natural disease, and yielded to despondency ; not
like Homer himself, who bore up against it, and consoled
himself with song. England can furnish another illustra-
tion. One might even fancy that the gods blinded poets,
not from envy, but as men blind singing birds, to make their
notes sweeter. The ancient Dorion seems, in fact, to have
been not far from the banks of the river now called
Mavrozoumeno, and may perhaps be identified with some

1 Pausanias iv. 33, 4. 2 Iliad, ii. $9$.

VOURKAMO — MESSENE — MAVROZOUMENO. 241

scanty remains near the khan of Kokhla. But the little
river I hold to be the Balyra is quite near enough the site of
the Homeric legend to suggest an appendix to that legend by
way of etymological explanation. The rivers Leucasia and
Amphitos, in that case, -will be the two rivers now called
Mavrozoumeno and Vivari, which join just below the
bridge. This renowned bridge owes its celebrity, first, to
its antiquity, and secondly, its singular plan. A horizontal
section of it would resemble the cognizance of the Isle of
Man, the three legs, more than anything else. The two
rivers, as I have said, join, leaving an apex of low land,
liable to be flooded, between them. A few yards above
the apex is the bridge; of which the western leg spans the
Mavrozoumeno, the eastern the Vivari, and the northern
leg. stretches over the low ground between.

The Dictionary of Geography 1 says : — ' The founda-
tions of this bridge and the upper parts of tha piers are
ancient; and from the resemblance of their masonry to
that of the neighbouring Messene, they may be presumed
to belong to the same period. The arches are entirely
modern/ This last statement is not correct. In that
over the Mavrozoumeno, or western stream, not merely the
foundations, not merely the rectangular opening at the
side, but also several courses of the arch itself, are Hellenic.
We made a minute examination of this bridge, and have
no doubt whatever that the ancient bridge had at least
one arch constructed on the modern principle. The span
of the arch is about seventeen feet, and its height from the
Mater to the keystone, about thirteen feet, of which nine

1 Art. Messenia, p. 342.
R

242 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

feet six inches from the water consist of Hellenic work.
That this is Hellenic work is certain; that it is coeval
with the walls of Messene is very probable. If so, it
proves that the old Greeks used their enormous architraves
instead of arches, not because they were ignorant of the
latter, but because the former style was to their eyes more
grand and more suitable to the sanctity of a temple or the
majesty of a city. We must remember that the remains
of ancient Greek architecture still extant belong with
scarcely an exception to great public works, where they
aimed at splendour combined with strength, not conve-
nience combined with cheapness. The abundance of stone,
durable and free from flaws, was another reason why the
Greeks did not feel the necessity of having recourse to
makeshifts and expedients. In bridges, however, of any
size — and such we are sure they had — the arch must have
been employed to sustain the heavy traffic overhead.
Close by the arch of which I have been speaking we have
an example of what smaller bridges may have been. In
this case it is a supplemental opening for the passage of the
water, about seven feet high by four wide, like a rectan-
gular door with a large single stone for architrave.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE BLACK DEMETER EIRA.

A FEW hundred yards beyond the bridge is a lonely
-^-*- house, the khan of Mavrozoumeno. There we
stayed for the night. Next morning, returning to the
bridge, we took the road to the north, across a grassy
plain covered with asphodel — one of the commonest plants
of the Greek flora, growing alike on the dry hills about
Athens and the moist plains of Messenia. The soft-
sonnding name, and its frequent mention among Greek
poets, give one a vague notion that it must be a beautiful
and fragrant flower. It is nothing of the kind, being a
sort of daffodil, with long coarse leaves about the root,
a thick stem, and colourless flowers at top. It is fami-
liarly known to the chemist as ' squills/ It seems to
have been an article of daily food to the rustics in Hesiod's
time. 1 O dura ilia messorum ! The plain over which we
are crossing was the plain of Stenyclerum, famous for
many battles in the legendary history of Aristodemus and
Aristomenes. Somewhere on our right was Andania, the
ancient capital of Messenia, before its subjugation by the
Spartans. In the Middle Ages this plain had the name
of Lakkos. Here, in 1 205, was fought the single decisive

1 Hes. Epy. icai Hfx. 41.
R 2

244 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

battle which, like the battle of Hastings, delivered the
whole country into the hands of Prankish conquerors under
another William, Guillaume de Champlitte. I cannot
find in my map the particular spot — Koundoura — where it
was said to have taken place. 1 The denies in the eastward
range of hills, known as Makraplai, were the scene of
another victory, gained by Guillaume de Yillehardouin and
his Turkish auxiliaries over the Greeks, under the Grand
Domestic, in 1267. On the summit of an eminence, a
few miles to the westward, is a noble medieval castle with
lofty towers, which a peasant tells me is called Vasiliko.
From its position it seems to have been intended to protect
the upper part of the Messenian plain from an attack on
the side of Arcadia, the town on the western coast. The
name Vasiliko implies that it was an imperial castle. It
may, therefore, have been erected by one of the despots
who governed in the emperor's name at the beginning of
the fifteenth century, when the Franks still retained Elis
and a strip of .territory along the shore. In about an
hour and a quarter we come to the base of the hills.
After a short ascent is the village of Constantinous, and,
by-and-bye, another steeper ascent, followed by some
rough riding among ravines and ragged wood. After
reaching the top of a kind of pass in the hills, we wait
for our belated baggage. Turning to the south, we look
over successive ranges to Ithome, with steep sides and
truncated summit dominant in the centre of the picture.
Below Ithome, to the left, is the great Messenian plain,
shining with overflowing water, and then the sea in the

1 Finlay's Medieval Greece, p. 207.

THE BLACK DEMETER EIRA. 245

far distance. Turning to the west, we look over the plain
of Cyparissa, rich in olive grounds and corn-fields, bounded
on either side by hills dotted with black pines. The rocks
about us are of a reddish schist, escaped, apparently, from
under the limestone which we see on the higher hills, lying
in level strata, peering here and there among the brush-
wood. \Ye halted for a couple of hours near Dimandra,
and breakfasted in a ruined church beside a fountain
overhung by a plane-tree. The provident Constantine
had bought a turkey at the last village. He wrung its
neck, and pulled its feathers as he rode. Espying a shep-
herd not far off, he had also furnished a bottle of sheep's
milk, which Alcibiades churned into butter on the way. I
record these particulars with an Homeric precision and a
frequency which may seem unnecessary to readers at home.
In the ordinary routine of civilized life people do not
know what hunger is, nor feel the importance of a meal
at meal-times. My object is to give as true a picture as
I can of our travels, and if I were to pass over the com-
missariat as a matter of little moment, I should be both
hypocritical and ungrateful. It is only the heroes of
medieval chivalry l who can dispense with such appliances ;
modern travellers share the infirmities of Achilles and
Agamemnon.

avrap eVet 7rocrioj kcu edrjrvos f£ epov evro

they resumed their journey.

Before we left Athens we had been counselled not by
any means to neglect seeing the cave of the Black Demeter,

1 Hago te saber, Sancbo, que es honra de los caballeros andantes
no comer, &c. — Don Quixote, bk. i. cb. 10, p. 72.

246 notes or study and travel.

which, we were told, had been discovered by a recent French
traveller ; and we were furnished with a precise description
of its position, and a rough plan of the neighbouring
country. Sending our baggage forward by the direct road
to Paulitza, we diverged to the right, having procured from
the neighbouring village an old man to act as guide. I
have often wondered at the longevity of the ancient Greeks,
and the intellectual vigour which they maintained to ex-
treme old age j 1 the physical vigour of Barba Jan — such
was the name of our guide — compared with his time of
life, was more wonderful still. He asserted, and his
appearance confirmed the story, that he was ninety-two
years old ; and yet he walked that day eight hours con-
tinuously over very rough road, refusing the horse which
was offered him from time to time. He led us along a
rocky path which wound round the base of Mount Tetrazi,
through thick ilex woods, for two hours, catching glimpses
now and then of a cliff before us, and a hole in the face
of it. Leaving our horses, we scrambled along a steep
wooded bank below the rock, and at last came to the
object of our search. Instead of the vast cavern we had
anticipated, we found a mere fissure in the rock, widened
in quite recent days by shepherds, of whose pickaxes the
marks are still apparent. It is about five feet wide, and

1 iEschylus produced the Agamemnon, Choephorce, and Eumenides
at 66 years of age ; Sophocles was nearly 90 when he wrote the
(EJ.qnis Coloneus; Euripides was the favourite of young Athens
when, as the story goes, he came to a violent and premature end at
the age of 75 ; Aristophanes continued to be funny at the great
annual festivals for 40 years ; Pindar lived to he 80 years old ; Plato
to 84 ; and because Aristotle died at the grand climacteric, 63, it
was supposed that he must have committed suicide.

THE BLACK DEMETER EIRA. 247

from six to iriiie feet high. The cave in no respect corre-
sponds with that of the Black Demeter described by
Pausanias ; and if we had read that author more carefully,
we might have saved ourselves the trouble of verifying the
pretended discovery. ' Phigalea/ he says, ' is surrounded
by mountains — on the left by that called Kotylion, and
on the right another mountain stands before it, Elaion by
name. Kotylion is distant about forty stadia from the
city, and in it is a place called Bassse, and the temple of

Apollo the Helper The other mountain, Elaion, is

about thirty stadia away from Phigalea, and there is a
cavern sacred to Demeter, surnamed Black/ 1 The ambi-
guity which arises from the employment of the terms, left
hand and right, instead of the points of the compass, is
removed by the mention of the temple of Bassse, which is
still extant, to show which was Kotylion, viz., the range
of hills on the eastern side of the city. The other hill,
in which was the sacred cave, was that on the western
side ; and the cave itself, instead of being twelve miles to
the east of Phigalea — where we had been sent to look for
it — was probably not four miles to the west. The distance
from the city to the mountain, in either case, is probably
reckoned to the commencement of the unenclosed land.
Pausanias himself was as much disappointed in his visit
to the true cave as we in our visit to the false. He had
read about it in some book or other, and about a statue,
the work of Onatas, an yEginetan sculptor of the fifth
century b.c, a particular favourite of his; and to see this
was his principal object in visiting Phigalea : but when he

1 Pausanias, viii. 41, 5, and 42, 1.

248 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

came there, lo! the statue had disappeared, and no one
knew that such a thing had ever existed, except one old
man, who said that in his grandfather's time some rocks
had fallen from the roof and crushed it. There was, how-
ever, an altar in front of the cave, on which, according to
the custom of the place, he made an offering of grapes and
other fruits, honey in the comb, and wool uncleansed from
the natural grease, and poured oil over the heap — or
rather the priestess, assisted by a young acolyte, per-
formed the ceremony in his name.

We might have employed our time better by climbing
an isolated peak which lies between the cavern and the
village of Kakaletri, sloping steeply down on all sides with
a considerable space of available ground on the top. There
is a tower and oblong walled space upon this hill, appa-
rently of medieval workmanship. The defensible position
of this hill makes it quite certain that one of the countless
strongholds of ancient Greece must have been built there.
What it was called must remain for ever undetermined.
The city of Eira, into which Aristomenes collected the
remnants of the Messenian people, was on the Neda, and
there is no position on that river, so far as I know, which
has stronger claims than this. Pausanias here affords us
no help. Though we learn from him alone the story, I
do not say history, of the second Messenian war, of which
Eira was the chief theatre, he nowhere hints that he had
visited, or even heard of its remains. Had he been told
that they were near Phigalea, he would, we may be sure,
have visited them; we may infer, therefore, that in his
time all tradition of the whereabouts of Eira was lost.
Going further back, we find that it was a matter of dispute

THE BLACK DEMETER EIHA. 219

iu the time of Strabo (b. viii. p. 360). Some affirmed that
it was identical with the (Echalia of Homer, and was
situated on the road between Megalopolis and Andania, to
the eastward, that is, of the Stenycleric plain ; others held
that it was the ancient name of Messola, on the seaside,
at the foot of Taygetus.

From these statements it is clear that Strabo had taken
no account of the poem of Rhianus, from which he would
have learned that Eira was near the Neda, as certainly as
Troy near Simois and Scamander. He was ignorant also
that the Eira of the Messeniaka was distinct from the
Eira of the Iliad. It is of course hopeless to attempt to
decide now what was a moot point in the reign of
Augustus. On the western side of this hill is the village
of Kakaletri, and about half a mile beyond it, on a lower
eminence, the ruins of an ancient city, which we stayed
to examine.

I transcribe here the rough notes made on the spot : —
\ The masonry very good, like that of Messene ; the
stones are of various size, but all rectangular in regular
courses. The shape of the walls is that of a lozenge nearly,
with a tower at each corner; the largest tower is at the
south-east angle, the corresponding one at the north-west
is fallen to ruin. The length may be 300 yards and the
breadth 150. Inside the walls, but not parallel to any,
is a strong basement with buttresses like those under the
Olympieum at Athens, and outside on the slopes below
are many remains of ancient terraces. Can this be Eira ?
The walls are much later than Aristomenes's time/

If the Messenians on their return had, in tenderness to
the memory of the former city, built another Eira near

250 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

the old site, but in a lower and more convenient place —
which is a natural conjecture — surely some record, some
memory of the fact would have survived down to the time
of Augustus. Possibly it was a frontier town built by
the Spartans during their occupation of Messenia; at all
events it was not the ancient Eira. It is too small in
extent, not strong enough in position, and is obviously of
later construction. The French surveyors have settled
the question in their usual trenchant way. They place
this ruined city on the top of the high hill before men-
tioned, and call it Eira, and in the position of these ruins
write the words ' Temple antique/ The Dictionary of
Geography 1 says f Near Kakaletri are the remains of an
ancient fortress, which was in all probability Eira; and
the lofty mountain above, now called Tetrazi, was pro-
bably the highest summit of Mount Eira.' Now, as
I have shown, the fortress of which these are remains
could not have been Eira, the hill where it may have been
has no ancient remains on it, and from both positions the
mountain Tetrazi is quite detached, and owing to its
height, 4580 feet, and wide extent, quite unsuitable to the
historical mythus of which it is assumed to be the scene.

It was past five when we left these ruins. We followed for
some miles a very rough path, if path it could be called, on
the left bank of the Neda, looking with Barba Jan's eyes for
a convenient place to pass the river. At last we managed
to cross, and plodded on some miles more. It was now
growing dark. Barba Jan had forgotten or never known
the road. Luckily we met another peasant, Anastas he

1 Art. Ira.

THE BLACK DEMETER EIRA. 251

called himself. Him we engaged as guide; but as it grew
pitch dark he lost his way too. We all floundered along,
over hedges and ditches, or what seemed to be such. At
last we came to the edge of a ravine, a stream roaring,
as streams do roar at night, far below. Somehow we
scrambled down through the wood, plashed through the
water, scrambled up through another wood, and so on
till about ten o'clock we arrived at Paulitza. The village
had been for hours asleep, excepting the household with
whom we had to pass the night. Our men had made a
fire outside, and were sitting round it, wondering with
pleasurable anxiety whether we had been murdered by
brigands or had only broken our necks. After all, the
only article broken was an umbrella.

The house where we lodged consisted of a single room.
At one end, round the fire, sat the whole family, old and
young, enjoying an Easter feast, probably on the strength
of what they were to receive for our night's lodging. As
soon as the lamb was roasted, the goodman of the house
tore it to pieces and put them into a dish, from which,
after it had been sent to us to taste, they all helped them-
selves. After which they disposed themselves to sleep round
the dying embers on the hearthstone. At the other end of
the room our beds were laid among a mass of household
stuff. Our hosts, like most of the people in this part of
the country, were Albanians, knowing only a few words
of Romaic. There are about 200,000 of this people
among the inhabitants of the Greek kingdom, that is to
say, nearly a fifth of the whole population. They first
came into the Morea in the fourteenth century ; some as
mercenary soldiers, who received grants of land after

252 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

being disbanded j others as invited or unopposed settlers
on waste ground.

In the year 141 5, the Emperor Manuel II., in a funeral
oration which he delivered at Mistra in honour of his
brother Theodore, who had governed the Morea as despot
or viceroy, made especial mention of the pains which he
had taken to introduce Albanian colonists. These colo-
nists were for the most part shepherds and herdsmen, and
occupied the pastures on the high ground on condition of
paying a rent to the government and to the Sclavo- Greek
proprietors in the towns and valleys. Even to this day
the Albanian language is spoken almost universally in all
the mountainous districts of the Morea, with the excep-
tion of the three southern peninsulas. In order to get
rid of the obligation of paying rent, they took an oppor-
tunity in 1452, when the empire of Constantinople was
struggling in the agonies of dissolution, to rebel in order
to become lords, not tenants, of the soil ; but the attempt
was quelled by the interference of the Turks. They have
received frequent accessions from the same causes in more
recent times ; but as there is a constant tendency in the
less civilized races to be absorbed in and assimilated with
their neighbours, so, doubtless, there are many people of
Albanian blood who now rank with the Greeks, because
they speak their language and have adopted their habits.
They are, I was told, offended at being called Albanians
or Skipetar, as they used to call themselves, and desire to
be termed Hellenes. This desire on their part, and the
systematic education which is now introduced in modern
Greece, will in a very short time obliterate all the dis-
tinctions between them. Generally speaking, the Alba-

THE BLACK DEMETER EIRA. 253

nians are lighter in hair and complexion and more athletic
in form than the Greeks or Sclavonians about them, but
there are striking individual exceptions to the rule ; as I
have said, they used to call themselves Skipetar, the learned
call them Albanians, their rural neighbours call them
Vlachi — a misnomer, but a natural one, since before the
Albanians were known in Greece the Wallachians had
occupied a great part of the country north of the Corin-
thian gulf. In the same way the Welsh give the name
of Sassenach to the Flemings settled about Tenby and
Milford Haven. The mistake is perpetuated in the
names of some villages inhabited by Albanians, as, for
example, in Vlakho-Raphti in Arcadia, Vlakho-Khori in
Laconia, &c.

CHAPTER XVII.

PHIGALEA BASS^E.

1 ~T)HIGALEA is situated upon high ground, precipitous
J- for the most part, and they have also walls built
above the cliffs, and, when you get to the top, you find the
hill smooth and level/ 1 Such is Pausanias's description of
the city. The walls are of rude masonry, of an order inter-
mediate between the polygonal and the Hellenic, and may
perhaps date from the seventh century b.c The struc-
ture, however, is not uniform, and its archaic character
may perhaps be due rather to rustic unskilfulness than
to remote antiquity. There are all sorts of salient and
retreating angles, to be attributed more to the nature of
the ground than to a plan of fortification. There are also
towers at intervals, some square, some round. In parts I
counted nine courses of masonry. The inside of the wall
has been filled up with loose stones and rubble. There is
a postern four feet wide with successively projecting stones,
and an architrave at the top. There has been, I think,
a larger gate close by it, for the ground is artificially flat-
tened both within and without. On the summit of the

1 viii. 39, 4. — Keirai Se f] $iyakia eVi fierewpov p.eu na\ dnoropov ra
ivKiova Kai vnep ra>v Kprjpvav <OKo8opr]pfpa eort rei^rj acpurtv k. t. A. The
ordinary reading anoroyiov, irKeova 8e \mb to>v Kprjfivcov makes nonsense.

PHTGALEA BASS/E. 255

hill, -which, though comparatively level, is not horizontal,
is a kind of fort, built of rough stones just as they were
picked up (XoyaSriv), with the exception of a tower at
the west end, where tools have been used. The fort is
oval, and the entrance is through a kind of passage
formed by an overlapping wall, as in the so-called
pyramid near Argos, and other places I have mentioned.
About a mile outside the walls, on the way to Tragoge, on
the top of a ridge, are the traces of some ancient building,
hewn-stones and the base of a column. The report of
our arrival must have spread to Tragoge before us, for as
we approached the village we were met by all its house-
wives offering for sale some home-made woollen-cloths
with gay embroidery in divers colours. Beyond the vil-
lage, on the slope of the hill called by Pausanias Kotylion,
are the remains of terraced walls, apparently ancient — ■
traces of old cultivation which the ebb-tide of prosperity
has left high and dry. "We ascend by a glen, and in
forty minutes come suddenly in sight of the temple. Of
the many hundred temples which the ancient Peloponnese
contained, this is the only one remaining of which the
plan and dimensions can still be estimated. Indeed, with
the exception of the seven at Corinth, there is not another
column standing in the whole peninsula. The columns
at Corinth are seen in contrast with the mean and
ephemeral houses of the modern town ; the columns at
Bassse stand in a desert among rough rocks of kindred
limestone, and surrounded by a scattered forest of oaks.
We can only guess, and probably guess wrong, at the
dimensions and destination of the Corinthian ruin; the
successive generations of men dwelling at its base have

256 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

preserved no tradition j of this temple in the -wilderness
we know the whole history, thanks to Pausanias. It
was dedicated to Apollo the Helper, and built by Ictinus,
the architect of the Parthenon. The inference drawn by
our author that it was a thank-offering for their deliverance
from the great plague of 1430-29 b.c, is almost beyond
question. Although the work of the same architect, the
proportions of the shafts and the angles of the capitals
are very different — a fact which should teach one caution
in drawing any conclusion as to the date of a building
from architectural measurements alone. The frieze which
adorned the inner walls of the cella was found almost
entire among the ruins, and is now in the British Museum.
The workmanship of this frieze is exceedingly rude, and
would never have been guessed to belong to the same period
and the same school as the Elgin marbles. It may be that
it was the work of Phigalean artists, after drawings sent
from Athens. The subjects are the battles of the Centaurs
and Lapithse, and those of the Athenians and Amazons,
having no conceivable connexion with the object and oc-
casion of the building. The same lack of purpose, the
same absence of all reference, seems to have obtained in
the minor ornaments of other ancient works. In the
throne at Amyclae, for instance, the ingenuity of the con-
noisseur seems to have been sorely taxed to find a reason
for this or that representation. The fancy of the architect
and sculptor appears to have been allowed full liberty ; if
they hit upon a theme specially appropriate, well and
good j if not, it was no matter ; the taste of the age was
satisfied with beauty. So in the Gothic churches the
workman indulged his caprice in decorating pillar, gur-

PHIGALEA BASSiE. 257

goyle and finial, with calm winged angels or grinning
contorted demons, without reference to the saint under
whose invocation the sacred pile might be consecrated.

The symbolism of a later age — an age which has ceased
to be creative and become critical — forces upon the heed-
less simplicity of ancient works a subtle interpretation of
which their authors never dreamed. I cannot but think
that the odes of Pindar and the choruses of iEschylus
have been sometimes subjected to similar misconstruction.

M. Bory de St. Vincent, in his narrative of the scien-
tific expedition sent by the French into the Morea, speak-
ing of this temple at Bassae (p. 261), says that when Mr.
Dodwell visited it, c II n'y manquait que la statue du
dieu qu'avaient encense les antiques Phigaliens ; en peu
d'instans les magnifiques frizes et tout ce qui faisait Porne-
ment disparut spolie par une troupe de speculateurs qui
en ont enrichi Londres.' Then he quotes from the travels
of a German savant, one C. Miller, who says, f The Ionic
columns of the temple supported that celebrated frieze
which Vandalism tore from them. What even the Turks
had refrained from doing, what no nation would dare to
do, that the English did/ This is a monstrous falsehood, as
M. Bory might have ascertained if he had taken the slightest
pains to find out the truth. The temple when it was first
discovered was in ruins, as it is now ; and the frieze, which
only became 'celebrated' after it was dug out, was buried
among the fragments which encumbered the ground.
* What no nation would dare to do V How did France
stock the Louvre in the reign of Napoleon ? How did she
acquire the Venus of Melos ? How came the xEginetan
marbles into the sculpture gallery at Munich? How

s

258 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

comes it that the walls of the museum at Berlin are
covered with fragments cut out of the tombs of Egypt?
I say confidently that no nation has been more scrupulous
in its acquisitions than England. At all events it ill
becomes a Frenchman or a German to throw a stone at
us. How is it that the lions of the Piraeus stand on guard
over the arsenal at Venice ? The very commission of which
M. Bory was president, found among the ruins of the
temple at Olympia some precious fragments of Phidian
sculpture, which they took away with them and deposited
in the Louvre. No English traveller has as yet been
found so foolish as to believe that they destroyed the
temple, or so malignant as to affect to believe it. Never
were treasures acquired more legitimately than the Phi-
galean marbles. M. Bory's tirade, coloured as it is by
frantic national jealousy, would have been in bad taste,
considering the pretensions of his work to a scientific cha-
racter, even if it had been based upon acknowledged fact ;
being, as it is, based upon what he might have easily dis-
covered to be a groundless fiction, it is worthy only — if
I may be excused for using such strong language — of aT.
Michelet. 1

1 A certain French author, M. F. Wey, who visited London in an
excursion train from Paris, has embodied the results of his fortnight's
observations in a volume entitled Les Anglais chez eux. He is
brimfull of national prejudice, but possesses that happy knack of
counterfeit naivete common to most of his countrymen, but wanting
in M. Bory de St. Vincent, which makes one excuse ignorance and
forgive insult. In a sudden access of candour, which in a French
author reads like a trait of genius, M. "Wey says, speaking of the
abuse lavished on Lord Elgin and the English, apropos of the marbles :
1 Laissons crier et, pour etre de bonne foi, convenons que, si quelque

PHIGALEA BASSvE. 259

Pausanias admired the exquisite material of the temple.
A close-grained limestone, weather-stained but not weather-
worn, blending its pale blue with the red-purple of a
minute lichen, — nothing can surpass the rich effect thus
produced. Many of my readers will remember Edward
Lear's picture of the scene, which was in the Royal
Academy exhibition some years ago — broad-leaved oaks in
the foreground, and far in the distance the blue sea and
the snow-capped hills. We, too, remembered the beauty of
the picture, and were anxious to confirm its fidelity — but
the Fates forbade. Though it was the 3rd of May, the
oaks, which in this high ground follow the old style, were
only budding, and a wet driving mist, worthier of Scotland
than of Arcadia, blotted all the landscape out.

The mist turned to drenching rain as we rode along
slippery earth banks and under dripping woods to An-
dritzena, a distance of about eight miles.

Andritzena is a large flourishing village with a street
of shops called a ' bazaar. ' This term, with other Turkish
words, is still used in the rural districts of Greece. For
instance, here at Andritzena, the women who offered coins
for sale addressed us as 'effendi/ and the children asked
for ' bachsheesh/ At Athens and the larger towns the
language has already divested itself of the orientalisms con-
tracted during servitude, and is adopting Gallicisms in-
stead; thus passing through a phase similar to its state
in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, during the

ambassadeur Francais eut fait enlever au profit du Louvre les chefs-
d'oeuvre de Phidias, loin de le charger d'anathemes, nous eussions
applaudi a son patriotisme, et joyeusement accueilli les tresors de
l'Attique.'

s 2

260 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

French occupation of Athens and the Morea. A notable
specimen of the language (I mean of course the language
of Greece, not Constantinople) at this epoch is preserved
to us in a metrical Chronicle of the French Conquest,
written/ as internal evidence proves, between the years
1326 and 1386 a.d. There is, however, this difference
between the two cases — then the borrowed Gallicisms were
words chiefly, now they are constructions. In former
days French influence supplanted the vocabulary, now it
corrupts the grammar. The French are the interpreters
between the north and the south, between the east and the
west of Europe. The thoughts of England and Germany
are conveyed to the Russian, Spaniard, Italian, and Greek
in a French mould; and thus the aggregate influence of
the three nations seems at first sight to belong to France
alone. It must indeed be admitted that this universality
of the French language is a mighty engine of moral
power, and secures to France a preponderance greater
than is her due on the score of material or intellectual
superiority. The dialect of the rayahs in Asia Minor and
the Turkish provinces generally is mixed with Turkish,
and in a less degree with Italian words, and will remain
as it is till the next change of masters. The Greek
spoken in the Ionian islands was, a few years ago, so over-
laid with Italian words and phrases, that of the original
stock scarcely anything but the particles remained. Greek
sympathies, French literature, and English society are

1 The author mentions the Catalan conquest of Athens, which took
place in 1326, and states that they occupied it at the time he
wrote. In 1386 the House of Aragon was succeeded by that of
Acciaiuoli.

PHIGALEA BASS.E. 261

•working a rapid change. Owing to the commerce and
conquests of Venice and Genoa, Italian had extended
itself not merely in the islands and coasts nearest to home,
but had become the common language of interpretation
all over the Levant. Now French, and to a smaller extent
English also, is taking its place.

This digression may be pardoned, if anywhere, at An-
dritzena, at which there is nothing to be seen, and of which
there is nothing to be said, except that it offers a night's
lodging unusually commodious, and commands a wide
prospect towards the north, where mountain ridges, the
ordinary components of Greek scenery, are grouped in pecu-
liar beauty, rank after rank, to the chain of Erymanthus;
and behind that, two snowy peaks, which on the autho-
rity of a villager I set down to be the summits of
Olonos.

CHAPTER XVIII.

FROM ANDRITZENA BY OLYMPIA TO PYRGO.

THE weather was again fine when we left Audritzena
at eight o'clock a.m., on the 4th of May. The
scene is not remarkable as far as Phanari, a village lying
below the fine bold peak called in the French map
Mount Paleokastro, anciently Kotylion. Both these names
are, I believe, wrong. There is an old fort at Paleo-
kastro, on the summit, but we could not learn that the
mountain was named from it ; and the ancient name Koty-
lion is applied by Pausanias to the hills near Phigalea,
on which the temple of Apollo stands. Colonel Leake
says the mountain is called Fanaritiko or Zakkuka, the
latter being the special name of the ruin ; we were told
that it was called Oreas. Here begins a deep glen down
which the river Phanari runs northward to join the
Alpheus. Its steep sides are composed of grey limestone
above, and red schistous earth below, and are covered with
trees, oak, maple, and dark pine. As we ride along the
high ground on the left bank the scenery becomes like a vast
shrubbery, plots of maple, holly-leaved ilex, and arbutus
hung with clematis and the creeping smilax, with smooth
lawns and winding paths between. On a level spot across
the glen we saw a group of peasants all in white, dancing
the Romaika. We wanted only the pipe of Strephon or

FROM ANDRITZENA BY OLYMPIA TO PYRGO. 263

Corydon to make us feel that we were indeed in Arcadia.
From the distance at which the dancers were our imagi-
nation had full play, and might picture the shepherds and
shepherdesses as worthy personally, no less than locally, of
the poet's praise : —

Stay, gentle swains ; for though in this disguise

I see bright honour sparkle through your eyes,

Of famous Arcady ye are, and sprung

Of that renowned flood so often sung,

Divine Alpheus, who by secret sluice

Stole under seas to meet his Arethuse ;

And ye, the breathing roses of the wood,

Fair silver-buskin'd nymphs as great and good, 1 &c.

This dance has been supposed to be traditionally derived
from the Cyclic dance of the ancients ; but of course this
cannot be proved. The figure is such as would suggest
itself without the teaching of tradition; I have seen chil-
dren in England dancing the Romaika many a time. An
indefinite number of men and women of all ages take
hold of hands and go round and round, with a hop and
a slide, to a low monotonous chant, which keeps time, but
cannot be said to have any tune.

At noon we reached the little hamlet of Bartzi, on the
top of a hill looking over the Alpheus, which, issuing
from a narrow pass to our right, spreads out over a wide
bed of sand and gravel. Beyond it are swelling downs,
high table-lands of pasturage, dotted with green trees and
olive-brown shrubs ; the lower ground and sheltered hol-
lows arable; chequered squares of corn and fallow, with
a village here and there, scattered about the slope. The

Milton's Arcades.

264 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

houses at Bartzi are roughly built of limestone with
alternate layers of clay, roofed with yellow tiles. After
two hours' rest we crossed the river — here a wide and shal-
low stream — by the ford called ' of Bartzi •' and following
the right bank, across meadows of asphodel, we met whole
families of Vlachi, that is to say, Albanian shepherds, mi-
grating to the summer pasture-grounds high up in the hills,
with all their flocks, and a few horses and donkeys carrying
their household stuff, beds, chicken-coops, and children.
The women wore a kind of black coat without sleeves.
By-and-bye we came to the Ladon, the stream of which
was much deeper and stronger than that of the Alpheus.
Hence the modern name, ' Bouphia/ which is unques-
tionably derived from ' Alpheus' and below the point of
junction applied to the united stream, is above this point
given, not to the stream which in ancient times was the
upper Alpheus, but to the Ladon, as contributing the
larger body of water ; though when the direction of the
course is taken into account, the other has a right to be
considered the principal river. The precise description of
Pausanias (v. 7, 1) enables us to identify the ancient
Alpheus and its confluents. If the asphodel be allowed to
pass muster as a lily, the poet again speaks no more than
the literal truth of ' sandy Ladon's lilied banks.' An
hour more brought us to the Erymanthus, a narrow stream
flowing over gravel between abrupt cliffs of pudding-stone.
Climbing up the further bank, we crossed first open pas-
tures, and then a forest of fine trees, pine and oak, now
scattered now clustered, in that wild variety which is so
pleasing to our national taste. By-and-bye we descended,
and came again to the banks of the Alpheus. On the

FROM ANDRITZENA BY OLYMPIA TO PYRGO. 265

other side are a succession of sandy hills, thick with pines,
and narrow well-watered valleys between. Somewhere
among those recesses was Skillos, where Xenophon passed
the quiet years of his life, writing, farming, hunting,
offering sacrifice to Artemis and all the other gods, and
training his boys to be virtuous, brave, and pious like
himself. The want of power and profundity which critics
complain of in his works is compensated by that easy
grace and serenity of style which make you feel that the
author was a happy man. When I read him I think of
Addison. It is the fashion now to sneer at his history for
want of patriotism, and at his Cyropcedia because it is not
practical ; at the Memorabilia because it is not like the
Phado ; and at the minor works because few people ever
read them. Whatever be the justice of such criticism,
we must remember that his sons, trained by his system,
and on his principles, grew up to be models of manly
beauty and prowess, mighty hunters and great soldiers;
that one died for Athens on the field of battle, and that
both were honoured with statues plain for all folk to see
before the propylea of the Acropolis.

We had been promised a superb night's lodging in a
new khan, so new that there had not been time for it to
get dirty, much less dilapidated ; but oh ! ' the fallacies of
hope/ if I may use the phrase after J. M. W. Turner.
The landlord was gone to a wedding, and had taken the
key in his pocket. In this perplexity, after a vain effort
to break open the door, we betook ourselves to a cluster
of shepherds 5 summer huts, the kalyvia of Miria by name,
and induced a family to vacate one of them and make it
over to us for the night. It was of an oval shape, made

266 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

of a rude wicker-work, with a steep roof supported on two
poles, and entered by a door about four feet high. It was
of course not proof against any weather. Fortunately the
night, which had threatened storm, was windy, but not wet ;
and under the shelter, such as it was, of the kalyvion, we
enjoyed as sound sleep as any of the shepherds or their
flocks.

We left our kalyvion at half-past seven on a fresh, sunny
morning. Scarcely two miles off we passed a prosperous-
looking village among vineyards on the hill-side. If we
had known of its proximity the night before, we might
have slept under more effectual shelter. In less than two
hours we arrived at a place where the hills receding leave
a level plain between them and the river — the plain of
Olympia. Its length is near three miles ; its breadth very
various, between the folds of the hills and the windings of
the stream. It is now called Andilalo, after a hamlet
which once stood on the bank of the stream which bounds
it to the westward ; and the hamlet was so called because
at this point travellers turned up to the left along a valley
leading to Lala, a town which had grown into importance
during the latter years of Turkish rule. Of all the monu-
ments with which this famous spot was once crowded — so
numerous that Pausanias devotes about one-eighth of his
whole work to their enumeration — not a trace remains,
with the single exception of the ruins of the temple of
Zeus. But for them it might have been doubted whether
this were Olympia or not. Several causes may be assigned
for this more than ordinary devastation. The statues of
course would share the fate of all statues — the bronze
melted down, the marble burnt into lime. The buildings

FROM ANDRITZENA BY OLYMPIA TO PYRGO. 267

have been all pulled down for the sake of their materials.
In the Middle Ages there were several important towns
and strong castles on the plain of Elis — Andravida, Cla-
rentza, Chlomoutzi, Vlisiri, &c. There were no quarries
at hand on the plain, and here, at the gates of the hills,
they found stone ready hewn. In later days, too, the
Aga of Lala, as Colonel Leake says, found here the most
commodious quarry. The nature of the ground, also, has
contributed to conceal whatever the rapacity of man has
failed to carry away. The soil of the plain is alluvial,
and liable to periodical inundations from torrents and from
the Alpheus ; the hills around are of loose sand, and their
conformation is altered by every wind that blows. The
places of the stadium and the theatre are probably hidden
deep in the hill-side, beneath the roots of many genera-
tions of pines. Not many years ago the ruins of the
temple must have been hidden in the accumulated earth.
They were discovered and dug out by the Turks. Happily,
before they had quite carried off all, their sway came to an
end; and the more recent excavations by Mr. Stanhope
and others were undertaken with a nobler purpose. The
size of the fragments had convinced Colonel Leake that
these ruins could belong only to the temple of Zeus ; and
the subsequent discoveries tallying with the description of
Pausanias, made the fact quite certain. I have already
mentioned the minuteness with which he catalogued all
the wonders of Olympia. He seems to have considered it
a religious duty. The Eleusinian rites and the Olympic
games had, he says, above all things in Greece, an especial
share of divine favour ; and the same piety which required
him to keep silence about the one, prompted him to ex-

268 NOTES OF STUDY AXD TRAVEL.

patiate on the other. The temple of Zeus was hexastyle,
of the Dorian order, with a continuous peristyle. The
material was freestone found in the neighbourhood (e7ti-
■ywpioQ irojpog), except the roof, which was of Pentelic
marble, cut in the shape of tiles. The pediments were
filled with statues, representing, at the eastern face, Pelops
and (Enomaus prepared for their chariot race, with Zeus in
the middle, and Cladeus and Alpheus reclining on their
urns at either end ; at the western face, the battle of the
Centaurs and Lapithse. AYhen we call to mind the signi-
fication of ' Hippodamia' and the connexion of the temple
with the race-course, it seems a coincidence more than
accidental that both pediments related to a heroine of this
name — the wooing of Hippodamia daughter of CEnomaus,
and the marriage- feast of Hippodamia daughter of Atrax.
As the statue of the god inside was inspired in the mind
of Phidias by the lines of Homer, 1 so I think it probable
that the subject of the sculptures in the eastern pediment
was suggested by a passage of Pindar, 2 where he calls upon
his Muse to take for her theme f Zeus wielder of red light-
ning and the revered headland of Elis, which of yore Pelops
the Lydian hero won, a noble dower of Hippodamia/ It
would be appropriate, too, that outside the god should be
represented with the attributes of his power, armed with
his thunderbolt, seeing that inside he was to be shown in
peaceful majesty, sternly resolute and omnipotent by the
effort of his will : l Kronion spake and bowed assent with
his dark brows, and the ambrosial locks waved on the
king's immortal head, and he shook great Olympus/ There

1 II. i. 528, sqq. ' 01. ix. 6.

FROM ANDRITZENA BY OLYMPIA TO PYRGO. 2G9

were also compositions in statuary above the doors at
either end, representing the labours of Hercules. Front-
ing the eastern door was seated this famous statue, the
master-work of Phidias, and the perfection of ancient art.
The flesh was represented in ivory, the dress overlaid with
gold, like the Athene of the Parthenon. In his right
hand the god held a crowned Victory of similar materials,
and in his left hand a sceptre adorned with all the metals,
and an eagle perched upon it. The throne, the footstool,
the basement, were covered with paintings and statues de-
tached or in relief. Round the throne the pavement was
of black marble, the rest white. Immediately about the
statue the floor was depressed, in order to hold oil, which
supplied to the ivory the moisture required for its preserva-
tion. It will be in the recollection of many that it was
found necessary to inject oil into the ivory found at Nine-
veh. In the Parthenon water was used instead, being
found to answer the purpose as well, or better. By this
exquisite care both the statues had been preserved in pristine
perfection for nearly six hundred years. Round the in-
terior, above the columns, ran a sort of triforium, by which
people could get behind the statue, and a twisted stair-
case led up to the roof. Of all this splendour the traveller
sees now only some great drums and capitals and broken
stones lying in a pit among heaps of rubbish and tufts of
shrubs. We found there some pieces of pavonazetto which
seemed as if they had formed part of a pavement. Per-
haps they supported some later offerings. It is possible,
also, that the temple was converted into a church, and they
may have been used in its decoration. The Greeks in the
classic times made no use of any of the coloured marbles

270 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

which they might have had for the quarrying. The black
was used, as here and in the propylea at Athens, but only for
pavement. A great many tortoises were crawling in the
sun over the stones. Among the ruins is a nourishing wild
olive, perhaps a descendant of the very c kallistephanos/
the sacred tree brought by Hercules from the fountains of
Ister, 'beyond the north wind, to be a shelter common to
all men, and a crown of noble deeds/ ' The ' noble palm/
the ' palm of Elis/ which the Latin poet speaks of, was
really only the kotinos, or wild olive. A hundred yards
south of the temple is another apparently Roman build-
ing, which cannot be identified. To the north is a low
sandy pine-covered hill, which, in default of a worthier
claimant, Ave must suppose to be the famous mountain of
Kronos, which Pindar, in the set phrase of conventional
compliment, calls u^r/Xoio -Trerpa aX'ificiTog Kpov'iov. This
is another instance which should teach us not to expect
literal accuracy from the Greek poets, especially from such
as, like Pindar, were paid for their praise. In this case
the sanctity and celebrity of the spot justified the applica-
tion of epithets which, on material grounds, were utterly
beside the mark. Colonel Leake speaks of a tumulus
north of the temple. It appeared to me that the 'tumulus'
was in reality part of the hill of Kronos, for their level sandy
strata corresponded exactly. It appears to have separated
from the hill in recent times, for the purpose of carrying
an artificial watercourse between. In the complete ab-
sence of all traces it is vain to speculate on the positions
of the stadium and hippodrome. The former was pro-

1 Pindar, 01. iii. 18.

FROM A.NDBITZBNA BY OLYMPIA TO PYRGO. 271

bably in one of the recesses formed by the hills, and the
hippodrome which adjoined, as we infer from Pausanias,
its lower extremity, perhaps ran at right angles to it along
the level. There would scarcely be room, otherwise,
between the end of the stadium and the bank of the
river. There are no remains in all Greece which can
be identified as belonging to a hippodrome. Hippodromes
were always on flat ground, such as would be brought under
cultivation when they were disused ; and the banks around,
not being so high as those of a stadium, the space for spec-
tators being so much greater, would be soon levelled by the
plough.

Nowhere, perhaps, in Greece or the world is the con-
trast so marked as at Olympia between the present deso-
late aspect and the busy past history of a place. The
remark is trite and obvious, but it would be mere affecta-
tion not to make it again. Every four years the games
here celebrated drew together crowds of men owning the
Hellenic name, from Marseilles to Kertch, from Cyrene to
the coasts of Thrace. With scarcely an interruption they
were held at the appointed time for at least eleven hun-
dred years. Because games with us are matters of little
consequence, sneered at by grave men, and denounced by
pious men, we are apt to think lightly of the games of
antiquity. But this is a great error. To the Olympic
games we owe not merely the odes of Pindar, but the
chronology of all history, literary or political. Amid all
the intricacies and complications of policy, through all
changes of fortune in the component states, in spite of
pestilence and war, the Olympic festival recurred with the
regularity of a solar phenomenon. Hence, to the earliest

272 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

compilers of general history it suggested itself naturally
as a date which should supersede all others. Of all
modern nations the English are most passionately attached
to the athletic exercises by which the Greeks set so much
store ; but we have no gathering among us which can
afford anything like a parallel to the ancient festivals.
If we could suppose all the best horse-races, foot-races,
prize-fights, and wrestling matches, all the May meetings
and musical festivals, to be fixed for the same place at the
same time, and then conceive not merely that the Houses
of Parliament should adjourn to attend, but even that in
time of war a truce should be proclaimed during their
celebration — imagine the assemblage of men of English
blood from the furthest corners of the known world, to all
of whom, and to their children, the name of the victor in
the principal race would form an epoch and a date never
to be forgotten, superseding that of the monarch or the
president — if, I say, we can form such a picture as this,
we shall have some idea of what the festival of Olympia
was to the old Hellenic world.

The last Olympiad, the 293rd, was celebrated in the
year 393 of our era. The last victor, the last successor
of the dynasty of Coroebus the Elean, was Varastad, an
Armenian, who called himself a Roman. About the same
time the statue of Zeus was carried off to Constantinople,
where it perished in a fire in the year 476. When the statue
was removed, the temple was perhaps converted, as I have
said, into a church, perhaps into a ruin. There is no re-
cord either of the time or manner of its destruction. The
temple, reared on so grand a plan by Libo, and decorated
with such costly skill by Phidias and Alcamenes, the

FROM ANDRITZENA BY OLYMPIA TO PYRGO. 273

object of the reverence, admiration, and munificence of all
the civilized world for centuries, perished at last by igno-
rance or fanaticism, and its fall caused not a murmur of
regret. Like the fate of many a monarch who, born in
the purple, surrounded with homage in the day of his
power, and at last ' bankrupt of majesty/ is left to die by
unknown hands, and buried without an epitaph.

After staying three hours and a half among and about
the ruins, we resumed our journey. Crossing the Cla-
deus, we soon came to a wide sandy plain, which, I think,
may dispute with the plain of Olympia the site of the
battle of Prinitza, in which the gallant Frankish cavaliers
defeated an army of Greeks ten times more numerous.
The name Prinitza, like so many other names, has disap-
peared, either because the place itself is gone, or because
occupiers of another race have given it a new name ; but
it is clear from the Chronicle that the battle took place in
a plain in the lower valley of the Alpheus, and on the
right bank of the river ; and as the object of the Franks
was to prevent the enemy's advance into Elis, it is evident
that they would engage as soon as the Greeks were come
into ground sufficiently wide for the cavalry to attack with
advantage.

In front of us was the mouth of the Alpheus. A rocky
strip of land stretches into the sea from the north side,
crowned with a ruined castle which played an important
part in medieval history. It was called by the French
Beauvoir, and by the Greeks Pondikokastro, or ' Water-
rats' Castle." In two hours we crossed another river,

1 The French in their turn gave a facetious name to the castle of

T

274 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

and came to a little village called Koukoura, where the
peasants were swinging in a tree in honour of St. George,
whose festival it was. From a rising ground close by we
looked over a wide extent of level plain and sea, with the
island of Zante in the background. By-and-bye we came
in sight of Pyrgo, a considerable town of scattered white
houses, lying on a sunny well-watered slope among vine-
yards and clumps of trees. We put up at the house of
one Aristides Elianopoulos, a breeder of silkworms, which
were piled tray upon tray in every corner of the house
except that which was devoted to our use. There is an
English vice-consul at Pyrgo, a Greek by birth, who,
hearing of our arrival, came in all haste to express his
regret that we had not gone to stay with him. We found,
also, a friendly Zantiote who, volunteering his services as
guide, took us about the town. At every convenient level
spot there was a group formed to dance and to look on
at the Romaika. I cannot believe that this dreary, mo-
notonous performance is descended from any dance, Cyclic
or other, of the ancient Greeks. Only a phlegmatic semi-
oriental people could take any pleasure in it.

Akova, which was one of the posts commanding the turbulent dis-
trict of Scorta, ' Mategriphon' or ' Trap for Greeks.'

CHAPTER XIX.

THE PLAIN OF ELIS PATRAS.

HP HE next day's ride was one of the longest and dullest
-"- of the whole journey, over the flat plain of Elis. And
yet the road commanded news of the mountains and the
sea which would have charmed us if we had been entering
the Peloponnese and had not been feasting our eyes for
many days past on its various beauty. Riding through
the vineyards which surrounded Pyrgo, we came to a low
level, crossed by a road bordered with wet ditches, broken
down in places and deep in mud. Far away to the right
the burnished helm of Mount Olonos was shining in the
sun. After surmounting a sandy hill, we came upon
higher and dryer ground, partially cultivated, with olive-
girt villages far apart and now and then a lonely house.
On the right ran the low range of hills on which stood
the city of Elis ; on the left the promontory of Clarentza,
* the revered headland of Elis/ ' which was once an island,
but long ages before Pindar's time had been joined to the
continent by the alluvium of the Peneus. The central
height is crowned by the towers of a fortress called by

1 Pindar, 01. ix. 7. Cyllene, afterwards Clarentza, was the port
of Elis, and the ordinary landing-place for those who came from over
sea to Olympia. Hence the mention of it by the poet of Thebes.

T 2

276 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

the Italians Castel Tornese, and by the Greeks Chlomoutzi.
The derivation of the latter word is evidently, says Colonel
Leake, from the Romaic word ^A^og yXo/nog, "which is
applied to hills of a regular form. It may be doubted,
however, whether it be not merely a corruption of Clair-
mont, the name given to it by Geoffrey de Yillehardouin,
who built it in 1218-1220 a. d. Over the sea lay the
island of Zante, so clear that we could discern the white
houses of the town and the walls of the fort which crowns
the hill behind. We crossed the Peneus, now called
Gastouni, about three in the afternoon. The town from
which the river derives its modern name lay some few
miles on the left, and received its name, as Colonel Leake
conjectures, from some follower of the French conquerors
named Gaston. Andravida, the French capital, was not far
from Gastouni, on the other side of the river. About
half-past five we came to the forest, which consists of oaks
in the dryer parts, with alders and willows fringing the
marshy ground. We had here a heavy shower; and as it
cleared off we caught glimpses of the sun setting over the
sea and shining on the lagoons which line the shore.
The level rays shone so brightly upon the young green
leaves, that to our dazzled sight the trunks seemed pink
and the shadows purple. We had many deep water-
courses to cross, and muddy paths overhung with thicket
to force our way through, before we arrived at our des-
tined place of rest. When we did arrive the daylight
and our patience were both spent.

Ali Tchelebi, bearing the name of a former Turkish
proprietor of the estate, is not a village nor even a hamlet.
It consists of two tenements — the one a khan, the other a

THE PLAIN OF ELIS PATRAS. 277

metoki belonging to the famous convent of Megaspelion.
This latter is a building of considerable height, pierced
•with scanty and irregular windows. The door is perhaps
twelve feet above the ground ; and you get access to it by
a flight of stone steps and a bridge of planks easily re-
movable in time of danger. Besides these precautions,
there is a strong crenelated wall surrounding the court-
yard, now in these peaceful days falling to ruin. We
chose, I forget why, to stay in the convent rather than
the khan. We were at first refused admittance, on the
plea that the abbot of Megaspelion himself and some of
the brethren had come, and there was no room. Just as
we were moving away the monk, who had opened the
door, called us back, bade us enter, and showed us up a
dark stair to a large room occupying nearly the whole of
one story, which, notwithstanding our reclamations, the
abbot and his suite insisted upon vacating in our favour.

Next morning, as we were preparing to start, we found
that one of our boys had fallen sick and one of our
horses lame, so that the weight to be carried was in-
creased and the carrying power diminished. After many
groans and complaints, which might more fitly have come
from the other horses which had the extra burden to
bear, the thing was arranged, and both the invalids were
brought safely to Patras, where a rest of two days restored
them. The wood through which we rode consisted of
scattered oaks, of the kind which produces the Yallonia,
one of the principal articles of export from the district.
About three miles from the convent is the Larisus, a
small stream, which in old times divided the territory of
Elis from Achaia. In three hours we came to the edge

278 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

of the wood, and rested under an oak beside a somewhat
scanty fountain for two hours and a half. We looked
over a glen whose sides were planted with vines and
maize, and over the nearer hills peeped the snowy ridges
of Olonos. From this place a ride of three hours and a
half brought us to Patras. After crossing a considerable
stream, which must be the Peiros of Pausanias (vii. 18, i)
and the Melas of Strabo (p. 386), being described by each
as forty stades from Dyme and eighty from Patras, we
rode along the edge of the shore, having on the right hand
the fertile plain and terraced slopes of Patras, backed by
the graceful lines of Mount Voidia, and on the left hand
the narrow sea, looking even narrower than it is, with the
bold mountain-barrier of zEtolia beyond. Opposite to
Patras rises immediately out of the sea the abrupt moun-
tain called Kakeskala, upwards of three thousand feet
high, and in shape not unlike the roof of a pavilion of
the Louvre. Turning round towards the open sea, Ithaca
lies full in view, an insect of an island, almost cleft in
two by a deep bay ; and beyond it the towering height of
Cephalonia. Some have suggested that Homer calls
Ithaca ' low' because it is so in comparison with the
Black Mountain in the neighbouring island of Cephalonia;
but this explanation does not meet the difficulties of the
passage. 1

As we entered Patras we met a funeral. The coffin,
as is the custom, was open. The corpse, that of a young
woman, was dressed in gay clothes ; the face was bare, and
the mouth covered with a piece of scarlet riband. In front

1 Vide page 205.

THE PLAIN OF ELIS PATRAS. 279

the coffin-lid was borne upright, hung with wreaths of
flowers, and before that a large cross. The attendants
sang a low, monotonous chant as the procession moved
along. The coldness and stillness of Death strike the
mind with a sudden shock of awe, when seen beneath the
rays of a cloudless sunshine and beside the ripple of
glancing waters.

Of the twelve cities of Achaia, Patras is the only one
which has retained its ancient name and preserved a con-
tinuous existence among all the changing fortunes of
Greece. This it owes not merely to its excellent com-
mercial situation, but also to the obvious recommendations
which it offered as a military and naval position to the
various Western nations who from time to time have
gained, or aimed at, the sovereignty of the Peloponnese.

Augustus, after the battle of Actium, made it a Roman
colony. It was the seat of a Greek, and afterwards of a
Latin archbishopric. It was the first citadel which was
taken by the French invaders in j 205, and one of the last
which was abandoned two centuries afterwards by the
Venetians. It was the first place against which Andrew
Doria, the great Genoese admiral, directed his efforts in
1532. Here Morosini, the Venetian, landed in 1687, and
after defeating ten thousand Turks commanded by
Mehemet Pasha, under the walls of the town, captured it
without further opposition. During the Venetian domi-
nation it was one of the four capitals of the Morea, the
others being Nauplia, Monemvasia, and Navarino. It
Avas the first place captured by the Greek insurgents in
1821, and through the disastrous years which followed
suffered grievously 011 all hands. No place paid a dearer

280 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

price for liberty j but its natural advantages endow it with
an obstinate vitality in spite of all the calamities of war.
In ancient Pagan phrase, Ceres and Minerva protect the
city against the enmity of Mars. In Pausanias's time a
great number of women were employed in the manufacture
of ladies' caps and other vanities, out of the byssus, or fine
flax, which grew in the adjoining plain. Now it has
found a more abundant source of wealth in the production
of the currant, — a source which will never fail so long as
England keeps Christmas. The crop of the Peloponnese,
in 1856, was estimated by the Osservatore Triestino at
between thirty millions and thirty-five millions of pounds,
fetching in the market a price varying from eighty to
seventy-three colonnati for every thousand. The whole
amount may be roughly estimated as being worth five
hundred thousand pounds sterling. The island of Zante
produces about nine million pounds of currants in a good
year, but there is an export duty which places them at a
disadvantage as compared with their continental rivals ;
on the other hand, they are free from the direct taxation
which the subjects of King Otho have to pay.

There are two hotels in Patras. That of Great Britain
(irav^oKzlov tvq MeyaXiig Bpsravviag) is clean, good, and
cheap ; there is also a Turkish bath for the use of which
natives are charged one drachma, foreigners three, and as
many more as they can be induced to part with.

Our plan had been to take a boat from Patras, and cross
the gulf to Delphi ; accordingly, under the auspices of the
English vice-consul (whose courtesy and kindness are ill-
requited by being mentioned in a parenthesis), we engaged
a trustworthy seaman to take us and our attendants,

THE PLAIN OF ELIS — PATBAS. 281

rational and irrational, to the Scala di Salona for twenty-
four dollars. The bargain was made conditional on the
duration of the westerly wind and nest day was annulled
by a furious scirocco which set in from the east and
threat ened, in the opinion of the weather-wise, to last a
fortnight ; it did not, in fact, last three days, but before
its cessation we had resumed our journey by land. The
scirocco's natural direction is from the south-east; but it
is headed round by the mountains at the end of the
Corinthian gulf, and blows down it, as through a funnel,
from the east, or from a point north of east. During the
settled weather of summer the prevailing breezes are
westerly, with this exception, that every morning, about
an hour after sunrise, a sharp breeze sets in from the
gulf and dies away as the day advances. This fact illus-
trates the account given by Thucydides (ii. 83) of the
operations of Phormion. In the summer of 429 b.c the
Corinthians and other allies of Sparta fitted out a fleet of
forty-seven vessels to convoy troops into Acarnania.
Phormion, who had been stationed at Naupactus with
twenty ships, was watching them as they coasted along
the southern shore, keeping on the other side a little in
advance. His ships were indeed not half as numerous,
but less heavily laden, and manned with more skilful
crews. He made no attack so long as the enemy kept in
shore; but knowing that they must cross somewhere, he
reserved his attack till he could make it at a favourable
time, when they should be in the middle of the gulf and
he should have room to execute the periplus and other
manoeuvres in which the superiority of his force consisted.
It was a game of skill against number. The enemy had

282 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

brought up for the night at Patras, Phorruion at the
mouth of the Evenus on the opposite side ; the Corinthians
hoping by that means to get over unnoticed, weighed
anchor in the night ; l but Phormion observed the move-
ment, met them, and compelled them to fight in the open
sea, midway. The enemy then arrayed themselves for
defence, placing their triremes' prows outwards in a
circle as large as they could without giving room for the
Athenians to break through, and putting the transports
inside. The Athenians meanwhile kept sailing round
and round — executing the periplus, and by feigned attacks
driving them into a still narrower compass, having orders,
however, not to attack really till their commander gave
the word ; for he was Avaiting for the breeze out of the
gulf, which generally blew towards daybreak j thinking
that with so many transports huddled together among the
ships of war, they would be thrown into utter confusion.
At last down came the expected breeze ; ship ran foul of
ship, and the crews, engaged in pushing them apart with
their poles, shouting and abusing one another, neither
heard the word of command nor the boatswain's whistle,
and being lubberly seamen, could not get their oars to
work in the swell, and the ships consequently having no
way on them, did not obey the rudder. The battle was

1 I venture here to read afyopnio-ajievoi, a word which, though
justified by analogy, is so rare that it has been corrupted in the MSS.
to vcpoppiadfievoi. They brought up every evening as a matter of
course, so did Phormion. The unusual move which they hoped to
make, without his perceiving it, was the weighing anchor over
night — an operation too important for the story to be left to be in-
ferred by the reader.

THE PLAIN OF ELIS PATRAS. 283

already won when Phormion gave the word of command.
The Athenians captured twelve ships, and the rest fled to
Patras and Dyme.

The only point in this narrative which presents any
difficulty is that Thucydides makes the breeze set in
towards daybreak (tirl r^ eio), whereas my informant
at Patras stated that it blew about an hour after. This is
a discrepancy of little moment to the story ; such as it is,
it tends to prove that Thucydides had never himself re-
sided in the neighbourhood. Indeed, as he states the
distance between Rhium and Antirrhium, at the mouth of
the gulf, to be seven stades, whereas it is really about twice
as far, I am inclined to suppose that he never saw the
scene of the actions which he describes with such admi-
rable force and vividness. There is no reason to suppose
that the strait was ever narrower than it is ; and though
Thucydides's informant, who perhaps had never thought
of the distance when on the spot, might easily be so far
wrong in his impression, it is impossible that any one
measuring it with his eye should not have come nearer
to the truth. This historian's account of the second sea-
fight, at the close of the same summer, would lead a
reader, unassisted by a map, to suppose that the breadth
of water inside the mouth of the gulf was much less than
it really is. The fact is, that the difference in this respect
is not very great between the inside and the outside, cer-
tainly not enough to justify the distinctive names of
tvpvy^wpia and ra ariva. Besides, if the Peloponnesians
stationed at Panormus sailed, as they are described in
chap. 90, ( towards their own shore inside, in the direction
of the gulf/ it would not have suggested to Phorrnion the

284 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

notion that they meant to attack Naupactus. I am not
sure that I have made my meaning clear, or can do so
without entering into tedious detail; but as I sat on one
of the sandy hills east of Patras, and read the history in
full view of the scene, I felt confident that the writer would
have written differently if he had been there. Among
other points it is not explained why Phormion did not sta-
tion himself at Naupactus. The inference you draw from
the narrative is, because there was not sea room between
it and Panormus to fight in, and that I conceive to have
been the impression on the author's mind ; but in reality
there is space enough for all the manoeuvres of which the
best fleet was capable — five miles at least.

In those days the town of Patrai stood upon the ridge
of hills which is separated from the sea by the alluvial
plain. This is shown by a passage in Thucy elides (v. 52),
where it is said that the inhabitants, at the suggestion of
Alcibiades, extended their walls to the sea. Being Achseans
by blood, they had no sympathies with the Dorians, and
had declared openly for Athens as soon as she appeared
to be strong enough to protect them. These walls were
to secure their communications with their allies, then
masters of the sea, and to prevent a blockade of their city
by the enemy. From the description of Pausanias we
gather that the new city of Augustus extended to the sea,
and probably occupied in great part the site of the modern
town, having its Acropolis, where the castle now stands, at
the extremity of the ridge. The Turkish town, again,
occupied the site of the ancient Hellenic city; and now
that the sea is as free from pirates as in the reign of
Augustus, the new Patras, like the Roman colony, is built

THE PLAIN OF EL1S PATRAS. 285

in the most natural and convenient site, close to the shore.
The Acropolis of which Pausanias speaks occupied probably
the place of the present castle. Within it were the
temples of Artemis-Laphria and other deities. In the
outer wall I observed a mutilated statue, an Ionic capital,
and several columns built into the wall horizontally with
the bases outwards, and many blocks which had been
squared by some Hellenic hand. This part of the build-
ing belonged, doubtless, to the Byzantine castle which the
Crusaders took with so little trouble. Close to the walls
of this castle stood the church of St. Theodore, the cathe-
dral of the metropolitan see of Patras, which, in enlarging
the castle, the French partly destroyed. A letter of Pope
Innocent III. to Geoffrey, Prince of Achaia, is still extant,
in which he repeats the complaints of the unfortunate
archbishop, how that his throne had been destroyed, the
bones of his predecessors dug up, &c. Some of the French,
too, broke into his house, seized his steward, who had fled
for protection to his master's arms, and, to use the pope's
words, ' cruelly amputated his nose, only because he had
faithfully defended the church's rights/ The prelate him-
self was kept for five days in a ' dire prison/ I observed
on the walls of the castle a bird, somewhat rudely carved,
representing an eagle or a falcon. If the former, it may
have been the cognizance of Guillaume de Alaman, first
baron of Patras ; if the latter, it may have been put there
by one of the family of Saint Omer, hereditary grand-
marshals of Achaia, and whose original family name was
Falconberg.

As you enter Patras from the west there is a large new
church dedicated to St. Andrew. It is the only church I

286 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

saw in which the artists employed to paint the altar screen
with figures of saints have ventured to abandon the stiff
angular Byzantine type. Close to the church is a well
called also after St. Andrew, and believed to possess
miraculous powers of healing. It is covered over with
Byzantine masonry, and the descent to it is by a flight of
steps. This is the only spot in the modern town which
can with anything like certainty be identified with the
description of Pausanias. A stream or a fountain survives
many successive buildings, and a local superstition attached
to either has the best chance of permanence. A tradition,
to be lasting, must be writ on water.

1 There is a grove by the seaside affording commodious
promenades and pleasant recreation in summer-time.
Close to it is a sanctuary of Demeter, and in front of it
a spring with a stone wall over it on the temple side,
with a descent made to it from the outside. There is
an oracle which never fails, not dealing with all sub-
jects, but only consulted about sick people. They let
down a mirror by a cord, so as just to touch the top of
the water, and then, after praying to the goddess and
burning incense, they look at the mirror, and it shows
them the sick person either living or dead/ '

The holy well is supposed now to have a healing, not
a prophetic power, and the magic of a Pagan goddess is
changed into the beneficence of a Christian apostle.

In a garden belonging to a certain M. Kritiko there is
a sarcophagus which seems to belong to the Roman times,
but is executed with great spirit and truth. In front there

1 Pausanias, vii. 21, 5.

THE PLAIN OF ELIS PATRAS. 287

are six Bacchant children, two and two, and at each corner
one. Behind them are garlands in relief. This relic
would have found its way to London or Paris before now
but for an order of the government forbidding the exporta-
tion of works of art. No one can object to the issuing of
such an order; but then it should have followed as a
corollary to the establishment of museums in the country.
As it is, all the antiquities remain in the keeping of those
who find them until such time as the Greek treasury shall
be rich enough to buy them — which -will be about their
kalends.

CHAPTER XX.

VOSTIZZA MEGASPELION.

A FTER three days' stay at Patras, we set off at eleven
-*"*- o'clock in the morning of May the ioth. The
scirocco still blew with unabated strength, producing lan-
guor and uneasiness in man and beast. This effect is
due, I think, not to its heat, but to the fact that, being
exceedingly dry, it holds the dust, as it were, in solution.
In other words, it is filled with minute and impalpable
particles, which get into the throat, eyes, and nose, and
stop up the pores of the skin. We had not, however,
ridden many miles when it suddenly ceased, and the
angry foam of the waters of the gulf gave place to a
glassy smoothness. After passing the sand-hills near
Patras, we came opposite to the low, marshy spit of land
which joins the Castle of the Morea to the shore; and
then rode for several hours along a path sometimes dipping
down to the shore, but generally keeping along the steep
side of hills thickly covered with shrubs, and more sparsely
with pines and other forest trees. The sea and the bleak
hills on the other side were in sight on our left nearly all
the way. About five o'clock we came to a more open country,
where the steep hills recede and leave a ledge of fertile laud
between them and the sea. We saw here and there a village
in the midst of vineyards and corn-fields, and shortly after

VOSTIZZA MEGASPELION. 289

the large houses of Vostizza appeared in sight. We
arrived about seven, and found the whole population at
church. On this day and the next there were to be
special services to pray for the cure of the grape disease,
which had now prevailed for five years. We waited for
some time before the door of the house to which we had
been recommended, till the crowd poured out of church
and came down the street, and among them the portly
person of our intended host. He was one of the principal
merchants in the place, and we had a letter to him from
our kind friend the vice-consul, who was connected with
him in business. He seemed at first more surprised than
pleased at seeing the group collected round his door; but
as soon as he had read the letter, he welcomed us with
exceeding cordiality. The house was the largest and the
best furnished which we had yet seen in Greece. All the
family were in their dresses of ceremony — I think it was
the eve of the feast of St. Alexius — the men in white
kilts, the ladies in jackets of tight-fitting velvet and
wearing red fez caps with long blue silk tassels em-
broidered with gold. Our host could only speak his own
language ; but there was a brother-in-law who had studied
medicine in Paris, by whose aid we carried on a brisk
conversation over the chibouques and coffee.

The failure of the currant-crop was the chief theme.
For several years past the grape disease had reappeared
as regularly as the fruit set, and neither prayers nor
remedies had been found effectual. This year a new
remedy was to be tried — powdered sulphur blown on to
the grapes with a kind of bellows. Some of the priests
opposed the use of human means, but the fathers of

u

290 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

Megaspelion had more worldly wisdom. They had made
a bargain with our host whereby he was to furnish the
sulphur and apply it to their grapes on condition of
sharing half the produce. The experiment proved after-
wards perfectly successful, and must have added largely
to the treasures of the Kyrios Soteri Panaghiatopoulos.

Vostizza, which beyond all question occupies the site of
the ancient iEgium, stands in a beautiful position at the
corner of a tableland stretching from the mountains to
the gulf. The torrents on either hand have thrust out
tongues of alluvial plain into the gulf, and so made some-
thing of a sheltered port for the town of Vostizza. On
the seaward side is a steep cliff, and between the foot of
the cliff and the shore a narrow strip of level ground.
Here is a fountain of abundant and excellent water
gushing out from sixteen pipes, and close by a magnificent
plane-tree, the pride of Yostizza, which, though past its
prime, is still the largest in Greece. It measures forty-
five feet in girth at a height of three feet above the ground.
I have only seen two others which could compare with it
— one in the seraglio at Constantinople, the hollow trunk
of which is used as a baker's shop, and another between
Therapia and Buyukdere. About the trunk of the Vostizza
tree — as it was a holiday — a goodly number of men and
boys were assembled. It is the lesche of the town ; and
a pleasanter spot for the purpose could not well be
imagined. It was early morning in early May, and the
place was full of pleasant sights and sounds, such as
Theocritus loved — a fountain prattling at our feet; waves
rippling on the beach hard by ; and overhead the breeze
shaking the leaves and tassels of the plane-tree together,

VOSTIZZA MEGASPELION. 291

and making the very shadcnvs dance merrily to the music.
The fountain, which here, as at Patras, has survived all
other antiquities, enables us to tell how this vacant
ground between cliff and sea was occupied seventeen
hundred years ago. ' In /Egium, by the seaside, is a
place sacred to Aphrodite, and after it one to Poseidon,
a third to Persephone, and a fourth to Zeus-Homagyrios.
In that place are statues of Zeus, Aphrodite, and Athene.
The surname Homagyrios was given to the Zeus because
Agamemnon assembled in this place all the most notable
men in Hellas to deliberate in common how to undertake
the expedition against Priam's kingdom. Next to Zeus-
Homagyrios is a temple of Demeter-Panachaia. And the
shore in which the aforesaid temples belonging to the
iEgians are, produces water in abundance from a spring
sweet both to look at and to drink/ ' The epithets of
Zeus and Demeter show that here was the meeting-place of
the Achaean league, and that this, like Grutli and Runny-
mede, is one of the holy places consecrated to Liberty.

Livy says (xxxviii. 30) : ' From the beginning of the
Achaean league the national assemblies were summoned
to meet at iEgium — an honour due either to the dignity
of the city or the convenience of its position/ This state-
ment is not strictly true. There was an Achaean league
from time immemorial, consisting of twelve federated cities.
The assemblies were held at Helice, a city about five miles
east of iEgiurn, which was completely destroyed by an
earthquake and a consequent irruption of the sea in the
year 373 b.c, together with all the inhabitants. The

1 Pausanias, vii. 24, 1.
U 2

292 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

country people who survived probably thought it better to
join themselves to iEgium, their next neighbour, than to
incur the trouble and cost of building a new city, an enter-
prise from which superstitious motives also would combine
to deter them. At all events, jEgium succeeded to the
lands and privileges of the submerged city, and became the
meeting-place of the league. The peculiar epithets given
to Zeus and Demeter date, no doubt, from this time, and
are due to this cause. The legend which attributed the first
convocation to Agamemnon is curious and significant, both
as respects the effrontery with which it was invented and the
simplicity with which it was believed. Some time after this
the meetings of the Achaean league were interrupted by
the Macedonians, who established a petty tyranny in each
city. At length, in 281 b.c, the towns of Dyme and
Patrse, Tritea and Pharse, effected their deliverance, and
formed the nucleus of a new confederacy. Five years later
iEgiuni obtained its freedom, and was again made, no
doubt from the influence of old associations, the place of
assembly. It was with this second league alone that the
Romans had any connexion, and hence Livy ignores the
former.

As I have said, there are no Hellenic remains of build-
ings ; but vast quantities of bricks and pottery attest the
existence of the ancient city. Owing to its abundant
water and commodious port, and the fertility of its soil
and the salubrity of its site, there has probably been a
town here in all time, which received its new name from
an immigration of Sclavonians. The French called it
Voustice, and made it one of the twelve great baronies of
their principality. Hugh de Charpigny was the first

VOSTIZZA MEGASPELION. 293

baron. The tragic fate of his descendant Guy is told in
the Livre de la Conqueste as Froissart himself might have
told it.

In the year 1295, wn en Florence of Hainault was
Prince of Achaia, Walter von Liederkerke his cousin,
captain of Corinth, and residing in the castle, seized one
Photi, a wealthy Greek, and kept him in a dungeon. As
the prisoner showed no inclination to pay the ransom re-
quired, Walter von Liederkerke had recourse to the form
of distress-warrant which Front de Bceuf found so effica-
cious with the Jews. After Photi had lost two teeth his
avarice gave way, and he ransomed the rest for 10,000
' perpers/ Photi having complained in vain to the prince,
resolved to take revenge with his own hands. The rest
shall be told partly in the words of the chronicler (p. 328).

' Si avint chose ainxi que les aversites et les fortunes
entrevienent aux gentils homes et aux prodomes qui vont
par cest chetif siecle, que le noble baron, Monseignor Guis
de Cherpiegny le Seignor de la Yostice si aloit en cellui
temps en une barque par mer de la Yostice a Corinthe ;
et ses chevaux et sa maisnie aloient par terre. Et einsi
come il aloit par mer, si lui vint voulente de descendre
en terre pour mengier plus aise. Si prist port a un leu
que on appelle Saint Nicolas au Figuier a une fontaine
qui illeucques est. Et ainxi come il issi en terre en la
compaignie de deux chevaliers et quatre escuiers si appa-
reillierent son mengier encoste la fontaine. Et ainxi come
il estoit assis et menjoit avec sa compaignie, si avint
d'aventure que Foty, que cellui qui ades avoit espies et
faisoit gaitier celle voie pour soi revangier se trova a
celle contree avec une bone compaignie de gent qui cher-

294 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

9oient ' (? chacoient) . The baron and his friends seeing
the hounds along with the men, took them only for a
hunting party. f Et pour ce les attendoient sans panser
nul malice/ and continued their repast. ' Et Foty qui
vit Monseignor Guy, qui resembloit aucques a Monseignor
Gautier pour ce qu'il avoit la chiere blance et estoit
blondes, si le feri de l'espee un grant coup sur le chief, si
que il le fist embrunchier a terre ; et puis le referi plusieur
autres coups. Et ainxi come il le feroit si va dire : ' Or
prenes, Monseignor Gautier, vostre loier/ Et quant la
gent de Monseignor Guy oierent nomer Monseignor
Gautier et cognurent que ce estoit Foty si escrierent :
' Ha ! Foty, ha ! Foty, que faites vous qui tues le Seignor
de la Vostice pour Monseignor Gautier/ ' When Photi
heard this he threw away his sword and began to weep
very tenderly, and fell at the feet of the wounded man, and
cried him mercy : f Ha ! sire, ayes pitie et merci de moi et
me pardones car je ne vous cognissoie mie/ &c. So the
friends of Guy took him to the boat and sailed to the port
of Corinth, where they arrived the same evening. ( Si
mirent Monseignor Guy sus un paleffroy; et le menerent
a la cite a moult grant paine pour ce qu'il estoit navres
au chief d'un coup mortel.'

The ' mires' {i.e. medecins) came and examined his
wounds, and found one so deep that only a miracle of God
could cure it. So knowing that he was not a man who
loved falsehood or flattery, they told him all his danger.
So he sent for a friar minor, who was a wise man and a
good scholar, and to him he confessed, and received the
sacrament with much devotion, and then made his will.
And after having thus fulfilled all his duties, he only lived

VOSTIZZA MEGASPELION. 295

one day. And from his death came great harm to the
country of the Morea, for he was a noble man and well
beloved. 1

The simple charm of the story is somewhat marred in
my abridgment. But even so, my readers will still think it
worth the telling. No one can fail to be struck with the
vivid picture of a vanished age. We seem to see the white-
sailed boat as she comes scudding before the wind down
the blue gulf, watched by the darkling crafty Greek, who is
beating the coverts on the hill-side for stags, but really in
quest of far other game. We can fancy the jovial baron,
with his fair face and blond hair, eating his pasty and drink-
ing his malvoisie in the shade beside the spring, with no
suspicion of harm and no prescience of fate ; we seem to
hear the waves rippling on the shingle, and the plane-tree
rustling in the wind — six hundred years ago.

Before we left Vostizza we went to the house of M.
Demetrios Petmazas to see two statues which had been
found close by. They are both about the size of life. The
one is a draped female figure with the left hand wrapped
up all but the thumb and forefinger. The other, which,
as a work of art, appeared to us much superior, repre-
sents, probably, Antinous holding a palm-branch.

We then took leave of our host, and set off about
nine a.m. for Megaspelion. As we rode through the
vineyards which cover the slopes on the south-east side of

1 Buchon calls Guy the son and successor of the first Baron
Hu°-h ; but as he had received the barony ninety years before the
tragedy just narrated, at which time Guy was still a man in the
prime of life, there was probably one generation at least between
them.

296 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

the town, where the vines grow luxuriantly among the
debris of the old city — broken bricks and potsherds — we
witnessed a curious ceremony. A priest was carrying the
skull of St. Alexius, their most precious relic, accompa-
nied by other priests or acolytes bearing crosses, and a
large crowd of people in holiday costume, from vineyard
to vineyard, stopping at each and chanting. The object
of their intercession was the removal of the disease.
After crossing a large river-bed, now nearly dry, in about
an hour and three quarters from Yostizza we came to
another smaller stream, and turned up its left bank to-
wards the hills. On the opposite side of the ravine is a
cavern which, to judge from the artificially smoothed rock
and the large holes cut in it, had in old times a vestibule
of masonry in front. It may be the cave mentioned by
Pausanias as that of Hercules, near the town of Bura.
But there is another cave marked in the French map on
the eastern side of the next hill. On both these hills are
some scanty Hellenic remains, identified on the map with
Korynsea and Bura respectively. If this be right (and
the text of Pausanias seems so far to favour it), then the
cave of Hercules is the other cave, as it was clearly to
the north-east of Bura; but a difficulty arises as to the
river Crathis and the town of yEgira. From Pausanias,
one would infer that the river Crathis was very near the
cave (vii. 25, 7), and the town of JEgira is stated by him to
be only seventy stadia from it — a distance greatly exceeded
in the map. Possibly the text is not free from corruption.
At all events, a more accurate examination of the district
requires to be made in order to settle the question.

By-and-bye we halted under the shade of a huge

VOSTIZZA MEGASPELION. 297

perpendicular cliff of conglomerate, overlaid in places,
from top to bottom, with a thick layer of stalactite,
formed by the water trickling down its face. The glen
up which we had come was thickly grown with myrtles
and arbutus. From this point we had higher and more open
ground to cross. At noon we reached a khan called
1 Makaron/ a little to the south of the ruins which are
supposed to mark the site of Bura. The trees afforded
scanty shade, but it was a breezy place, and a spring
flowing into a pond close by supplied good water and
plenty of cresses, now, as of old, called Kdrdama. From
thence the road continues to ascend for forty minutes
through a wood — scattered planes and oaks — to the top of
a ridge, from which there is a grand view of Mount Khel-
mos, with its snows and precipices, to the south-east.
Turning to the north is a prospect which combines all the
elements of picturesque beauty in a way which I had never
seen paralleled. Immediately in front are broken masses
of mountain, with cliffs grey below and red above, belts
of dark pine on the ledges, and tracts of bright green sward
on the upper slopes ; beyond, looking down the ravine that
parts the hills, a strip of plain by the shore, then the blue
gulf, and over all the snowy heights of Parnassus and
JEtolia. Beauty of form is the unfailing characteristic of
Greek scenery; monotony of tint its customary defect. In
this prospect the colours are vivid and various in a degree
that would be remarkable anywhere. From this point
there is a long descent, and nothing worthy of note,
except on the hill-side a fountain, which is said to be cold
in summer and warm in winter. Herodotus mentions a
spring in the desert with a similar property. The obvious

298 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

explanation that the water is of uniform temperature and
seems therefore cold in the hot season, and vice versa, though
our guide scornfully rejected it, is beyond doubt the true
explanation. A phenomenon exactly similar is presented
by the temperature of a good cellar, and in the case of
the spring the natural reservoir is probably so far below
the surface that it is not affected by change in the exter-
nal air.

We cross the stream just before its entrance into a
dark, narrow defile between abrupt precipices, and come
before sunset to a glen artificially terraced and irri-
gated, and divided into a multitude of little gardens, the
handiwork and property of the monks of Megaspelion.
The fruit-trees and hedges were clamorous with nightin-
gales. In a few minutes more we arrived at the gate of
the convent. "We presented a letter which our host at
Yostizza had written to the hegoumenos, were admitted,
and after waiting some time below, were conducted up a
series of dark staircases to a room in the uppermost story,
— the guest-chamber — a room with wainscoted walls and
wooden divans, on which carpets were spread for our use.
A numbe v of monks visited us in succession. One of
them favoured us with a history of the Septuagint trans-
lation, which he unhesitatingly attributed to Demetrius
Phalereus. The others listened in silence to their learned
brother, evidently proud of him.

Next morning we inspected the convent. Of all the con-
vents of the Eastern world, this of the Megaspelion has
probably been most frequently visited and most frequently
described. I will therefore confine myself to a brief
sketch. I have before mentioned, as characteristic of this

VOSTIZZA — MEGASPELION*. 299

region, the perpendicular cliffs of conglomerate. Megas-
pelion, ' the great rock/ is one of them, rising to the
height of three hundred feet at the head of a narrow glen
in the midst of steep hills and thick pine woods. The
base of the great rock has been scooped out by nature and
art, so as to form a huge cavern, of which the deepest re-
cess serves for a church. In front, parallel to the face of
the rock, runs a solid wall twenty feet thick, to judge by the
eye, though the monks said thirty; and upon this rest the
successive stories of the convent buildings, continued up
to the face of the overhanging rock, and at each stage be-
coming more rickety and irregular. The monks affirmed
that the height to the topmost story was sixty metres.
This, however, seemed to be as much over the mark as
Colonel Leake's estimate of sixty-five feet to fall below it.
The effect of the whole, as seen from a little distance in
front, is exceedingly grotesque. If the semi-human Aris-
tophanic swallows had set themselves to build a factory in
Xephelococcygia, this is the sort of structure that might
have resulted. Within all is mean and miserable except
the cellars ; the library is a narrow closet, holding perhaps
150 volumes deep in mould and dust; of its contents no
one could tell us anything. The ' learned brother ' was
not there. The Handbook, I know not on what authority,
states that the books are of no great value or curiosity.
The only work which we saw deserving mention was a
MS. of part of the New Testament, dated «■ xfJa , i.e.
a.m. 6701 or a.d. 1193. Colonel Leake says, ' There are
none but ecclesiastical books in the monastery;' I noticed,
however, a printed Aristotle, and two or three other profane
works. The refectory is a filthy room furnished with

300 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

rotten tables and benches. In the dismal cell -which
serves for a church there is a hideous carving in low relief
of the Virgin and Child — the work, they tell us, of St.
Luke — before which a single oil-lamp is kept burning.
These Greek monks have none of that skill in art which
wins our admiration for the Carthusian, nor of that zeal
for learning which claims our gratitude for the Benedic-
tine ; nor, if outward signs and public opinion may be
trusted, have they aught of that devout spirit failing
which these institutions are unworthy of respect, are pur-
poseless and mischievous. Before our visit we received
warnings from several quarters not to leave anything of
value unprotected, as the honesty of the monks was not to
be relied on. The insinuation may or may not have been
just, for we took care not to put their honesty to the test.
I mention it as showing the estimation in which the
fathers are held. Of their sordid love of money and
shameless importunity we had proof enough. A few
hundred yards in front of the convent a little platform,
with a fine group of ilex-trees upon it, projects from the
hill-side. This is the cemetery. The graves have no
name inscribed. A few years after burial the bones are
dug up to make room for a new comer, and thrown into a
kind of outhouse close by, which is half filled with these
ghastly unhonoured relics.

CHAPTER XXI.

STYX.

TTTE left the convent at half-past eight in the morning
of the 12th of May, taking with us a young monk, a
native of Solos, and therefore acquainted with the road, to
guide us to that place. Among the many tracks which in-
tersect each other in the woods leading to this or that
field or pasture tended by the monks, it is very easy to miss
the right one, and this is what befel our attendants, who
strayed down into the valley instead of climbing the hill.
The young monk, standing on a prominent rock, shouted
with all the power of his lungs. It was some time before
he got an answer, except from the echoes ; but at last a
far-off shout was heard in reply, and the wanderers by-and-
bye rejoined us. We called our monk Philammon, after
the hero of Mr. Kingsley's tale. He was wonderfully
active and stalwart withal — a handsome, sensual face, with
fine dark eyes and a wild mass of black hair hanging down
his back. In the excess of his spirits he played all manner
of antics, unimpeded by the gown which reached to his
ankles. By-and-bye we came upon a large party of monks
digging a watercourse in order to irrigate a pasture, busy
and seemingly happy in their work. Thence we rode through
a wooded glen, opening out here and there into a grassy
glade, till at eleven we reached a copious fountain deserv-

302 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

ing its name of Krya Vrysis. In another half hour we
reached the top of the pass called by the monk c Skylo-
graimis.'

The prospect northward toward Parnassus and the gulf
of Crissa, which is seen winding into the land with beau-
tifully sweeping curves, is scarcely inferior to that of yester-
day. On the other side, immediately below us, are enormous
precipices of white calcareous stone breaking abruptly into
the valley of the Crathis. We descended for an hour by
a steep path rough with shale; and before reaching Solos,
turned off to the right, under the guidance of ' Philam-
mon/ sending the others to wait for us at the village.

In half an hour more we came in sight of the head of
the glen — a grand specimen of mountain scenery. Mount
Khelmos here breaks away in a vast wall of precipitous
rock many hundred feet high, but choked with a heap of
debris reaching half way up and sprinkled here and there
with meagre pines. Over the jagged line which marks
the top of the precipice we see the higher slopes covered
with snow, and from a notch in the mountain side a thin
stream of water falls down the cliff on to the rugged heap
below. Every now and then the stream is lifted by wind
and scattered over the face of the cliff, which, elsewhere
grey with lichens and weather-stains, is, where thus
washed, of a deep red tint. This thread of water is one
of the sources of the full clear stream which flows through
the glen and joins the Crathis below Solos. The stream
and the waterfall are both called Mavro-Nero, or Black-
water, and are, beyond question, the same stream and
waterfall which in Pausanias's time had the name of Styx.
I give here a compressed translation of his narrative : —

STYX. 303

c Westward from Pheneos are two roads — that to the left
leading to the city of Kleitor, that to the right leading to
Nonacris. In old times Nonacris was a strong place
(7r6\i(Tjua) of the Arcadians, but in my time only some
scanty ruins were to be seen. Not far from the ruins is
a high cliff. I know of no other that reaches such an
elevation ; and down the cliff drips water, and the Greeks
call it the water of Styx. The author of the Theogonia,
whom some think to be Hesiod, has personified the Styx.
.... Above all, Homer has introduced the name of Styx
into his poem, for he says in ' The oath of Hera/ 1 l Witness
herein be earth, and the broad heaven above, and the fall-
ing water of Styx/ The expression seems as if he had
seen the water of Styx dropping. And in the Catalogue 2
he makes the water of the river Titaresius to flow from
the Styx. And he represents the water as being in Hades 3
when Athena says that Zeus has forgotten how by her
means he saved Hercules : ' For had I known these things
in my cunning mind, what time Eurystheus sent him to
the place of Hades that keeps his gate fast, to bring from
Erebos hateful Hades' dog, he had not 'scaped the sheer
streams of Styx/

' The water that drops from the cliff beside Nonacris
falls first on to a high rock, and after passing through the

1 Homer, Iliad, xv. 36 —

icrrco vvv rode yaia ical ovpavos evpvs vnepQe
Kai to Kareifiopevov Srvyos v8a>p.

2 Ibid. ii. 756—

opKov yap 8eivov Srvyos vBaros eo~Tiv anoppay^.

3 Ibid. viii. 369.

304 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

rock, runs down to the river Crathis. This water gives
death to man and every other animal. Glass, crystal,
agate, and earthenware are shivered, and horn, bone, and
metals rotted by this water. The only thing which can
contain it is a horse's hoof. It is said that Alexander the
Great was poisoned by this water, but I do not know the
truth of the story/ 1

The belief here expressed by Pausanias in the identity
of the Arcadian waterfall and the Homeric Styx seems to
have been accepted by all subsequent travellers and modern
geographers. It is a belief which one is glad to share
and loath to disturb. We clutch eagerly at every visible
link connecting the present with the past ; we feel an in-
describable pleasure in looking upon an object which we
suppose Homer to have seen, if not with the bodily, at
least with the mind's eye, and in finding an illustration of
unchanged nature in the works of immortal genius. It
is, however, worth while to examine the point more nar-
rowly — even at the risk of giving a rude shock to senti-
ment — because the solution of the question is an important
step towards estimating the geographical significance of
Homeric poems generally. If the author of those poems
had seen or known of this waterfall in the wildest valley,
and in the very centre of the Peloponnese, the fact would
lead us to infer a similar knowledge of the topography of
other parts of Greece. Indeed, he who was acquainted
with her secluded mountain-wildernesses would certainly
be familiar with her cultivated plains and ' well-built '
cities.

1 Paus. viii. 17, 4, and 18, 1—2.

STYX. 305

We have, then, to discuss this question : Is Pausanias
right in identifying this waterfall with the Homeric Styx ?
It appears to me that the very passages he has quoted,
taken with their context, prove the contrary. In the oath
of Hera calling to witness heaven and the earth and the
waters under the earth, the Styx is obviously conceived by
the poet as belonging to and representing the under-world.
In any other sense the witnesses invoked by Hera are not
co-ordinate or homogeneous. The same words occur in
the Odyssey (v. 184). This inference follows, also, from
a consideration of the passage from the catalogue. The
river Titaresius, which is a tributary of the Peneus, is an
' arm' or outlet of the Styx, which here again is in the
mind of the poet a river of the under-world, — not a
mere thread of water trickling down a rock, but a great
abounding flood, of which one of the rivers of upper earth
is a fraction. Similarly iu the Odyssey? when Circe
directs Ulysses on his voyage to Hades, he is to cross the
stream of ocean far beyond the confines of the inhabited
world and to moor his ship on the further shore, ' where
to Acheron flow Pyriphlegethon and Cocytus, which is an
outlet of the water of Styx.' The third passage quoted
by Pausanias scarcely needs comment. He himself re-
marks that the Styx there mentioned is in Hades.
Strange that he should suppose it to be also in Arcadia.
It may be observed, too, that Homer, 2 speaking of the
Arcadians in the catalogue, mentions Mount Cyllene, the
tomb of ^Epytus, and nine cities, but says not a word about
the Styx. If in this same catalogue he makes such espe-

1 Horn. Od. x. 514. ' Horn. II. ii. 603.

306 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

cial mention of the Titaresius, an arm of the Styx, surely
he would not have omitted all notice of the Styx itself.

But in truth all the natural features, rivers or moun-
tains, which are connected with the earliest forms of Greek
mythology, with the vague horrors of Pelasgian supersti-
tion as distinguished from the anthropomorphic realism of
the Hellenes, are to be found north of the Corinthian gulf.
To return to the Styx. The Homeric ideal is that of a
great river falling down in a sheer cataract to the under-
world, and then running with a mighty stream to infinite
distance, flowing as well beneath the roots of the Thessa-
lian hills as below the palace of Hades beyond the ocean
stream. In the Theogonia we have a description of the
Styx much more detailed than the aggregate of Homer's
allusions, but in the main so accordant with them, as to
furnish a strong ground for claiming for this part of the
poem an antiquity scarcely less than for the Iliad and
Odyssey. There Styx is represented both as a person and
a river. ' As far below the earth as earth is below heaven,
w r here the Titans are imprisoned beneath the roots of earth
and sea, where Day and Night meet and greet each other,
where dwell the dread brethren Death and Sleep, on whom
the sun never shines, where the palace of Hades and Per-
sephoneia is guarded by the hateful dog — there dwells also
the goddess, hateful to immortals, Styx, eldest daughter
of refluent Ocean, in halls over-roofed with lofty rocks,
apart from gods. Thither Zeus sends Iris to bring from
that far place the mighty oath of gods in a golden ewer
— that renowned water cold that pours down from a rock
huge and high — and with copious stream it flows beneath
wide earth through black night from the sacred river

STYX. 307

(ocean) — a horn of ocean, the tenth part thereof. Nine
parts of ocean roll in silver eddies round land and water,
and then fall into the sea, but the tenth part pours from
a rock, mighty bane of gods/ ' Then, after detailing the
penalties which the gods must pay for perjury, if they have
sworn by this water, the poet proceeds, ' Such an oath
did the gods make the water of Styx imperishable
primeval, which she sends through a rugged region/

Pausanias has not quoted nor alluded to this part of the
Tlieogonia, though he says that when he read that part
in which Styx is called the wife of Pallas (383 sqq.) he
thought it not genuine. He has told us that gold, like
other metals, is incapable of holding this wonderful water,
yet in the Theogonia we see that Iris fetched it in a golden
ewer. I should like to have seen the matter-of-fact gravity
with which he would have endeavoured to reconcile the
discrepancy.

Let us now turn to the passage of Herodotus which is
generally adduced to confirm the statements of Pausanias.
The historian is speaking of Cleomenes who, he says, was
organizing a confederacy of Arcadians against Sparta, and
was particularly anxious to insure their fidelity by assem-
bling the chiefs at Nonacris, and exacting an oath from
them on the water of Styx. 2 ( Now, the Arcadians say

1 Hesiod, Tlieog. 719-806. I have omitted what had no re-
ference to my immediate subject.

" Herod, vi. 74 — eV 8e Tavrrj ttj noKei Xeyerai eivai vtt Ap<d8av
to Sriiyos Z8a>p Kai 81) <a\ ecm. roiovSe rt" v8cop oXiyov <pa.ivop.evov e<
7T€Tpr]s ard^ei es aynos to 8e ayieos alpaairjs tis Trepidiei kvkXos. This
account accords in the main with that of Theophrastus (Leake, iii. 162),
who describes the water as dropping ' from a sort of bit of a rock — en

308 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

that in this city is the water of Styx, and there actually
exists what I am about to describe. A little water appear-
ing from a rock, drops into a hollow, and round the hollow
runs a kind of circular wall. And Nonacris, in which
this fountain is situated, is a city of Arcadia near Pheneos/
It will, I think, be obvious to any one acquainted with
Herodotus' s style, that he is here speaking of what he has
himself seen ; and to me it is equally obvious that the
description does not apply to Styx of Pausanias. What
Herodotus saw Avas a scanty source of water, probably
within the walls of Nonacris, which fell drop by drop into
a pool, around which a wall protected the sacred and pre-
cious water from the touch of profane persons ; not a
mountain torrent pouring over a rock hundreds of feet
sheer down into a gorge choked with the ruins of the
mountain, to which only an adventurous mountaineer could
gain access, and whither in all likelihood no human foot
had ever climbed ; for no goat would stray there in search
of pasture, and among the old Greeks, the most matter-
of-fact people that ever existed, there were no amateurs
ready to peril life and limb for the sake of varying the
monotony of civilized life or satisfying a vague sentimental
craving for the horrors of nature. The Styx of Herodotus,

tivos TrerpiSlov — a singular phrase to apply to that which was the
highest precipice Pausanias had ever seen. Even Plutarch's notion of
Styx — or, properly speaking, the notion of the writers from whom he
copied — seems to have been a kind of dropping-well which hardly
even dropped. Speaking of the poison given to Alexander, he says
(Alex. 7/)' T ° ^ (pappanov v8a>p eivai \jsvxpbp kcii 7rayera>8es dwo nerpas
twos iv 'Na>vaKpl8i ovarjs r\v coairep dpocrov XeTrrrjv dvaXap^dvovres els
ovov X r f^') v diroridevrai.

STYX. 309

moreover, had no outlet, else why guard it with a wall ?
The modern Styx appears at the foot of the gorge an
abundant and perennial river. This again is remarkable.
Pausanias had Herodotus at his fingers'-ends, guiding his
pen, as one may see coustantly by his phraseology ; and
in this very passage he uses the word (ard'Cu) which Hero-
dotus had used ; and yet he never alludes to the historian's
account of Styx. How comes this ? The fact is, I believe,
that he did not know what to make of it ; he saw that the
description did not suit the phenomena, and so abstained
from quoting what he could not explain. His employment
of the word gtoC^i, which would assuredly not have been
suggested by the waterfall itself, was suggested by Hero-
dotus. The older writer would certainly never have used
it for the 'pouring' of a stream; but in the time of the
later writer it may, like many other words, \a\ziv for in-
stance, familiar to Hellenistic scholars, have lost its special
meaning, and have been used in a generic sense for the
falling of water, instead of its ' dropping ' or c dripping.'
I suppose that when the old Styx had been forgotten
among the ruins of the deserted Nonacris, the most remark-
able water in the neighbourhood was promoted to the
name, and had been firmly established as the Styx before
Pausanias's time. A certain rough agreement with the Ho-
meric and Hesiodic words was quite enough to sanction what
everybody was glad to believe. In the Island of Ithaca, in
the little cove called Dexia, there was a grotto by the sea-
shore, which all were agreed to believe was the very grotto
where Ulysses hid his treasures after the Phseacians had
put him ashore. Now this grotto was ruthlessly blown
up by the British government, because it was in the line

310 NOTES OP STUDY AND TRAVEL.

of a projected road; but government could not explode
the tradition, which has taken refuge in another cave half
a mile inland. There it "was that Ulysses hid his trea-
sures, &c. And future generations of dilletanti will be-
lieve in cave No. 2 as devoutly as past generations believed
in cave No. I. And, indeed, why disturb these harmless
illusions ? If I had thought that my reasons could pro-
duce any effect, I would not have said a word. But I
feel assured that reason is powerless against sentiment,
and that all travellers, in all time to come, will continue
to believe in, and to swear by, the Styx. Let them. The
great bane of gods can do harm to no man. By the way,
I could not learn that there was any ground for the asser-
tion that the neighbouring people have to this day a super-
stitious dread of the water, and a conviction of its poison-
ous qualities. Our guide, c Philammon/ whom I questioned
about it, repudiated the charge as an injustice, and, slap-
ping his stalwart thighs, said, c It was the water of Styx
that made these/ As we crossed the river I tasted
the water, and found it excellent. Neither its tempera-
ture, colour, nor flavour is such as to suggest or support
the notion of its having a preternatural origin. "When
Colonel Leake was at Solos, not one person, not even the
schoolmaster himself, had heard of the Styx. The river
was then called, like so many other rivers, Mavro-Nero —
a complimentary name. A consequential person who,
with the other able-bodied inhabitants of Solos, favoured
us with his company during our al fresco breakfast there,
angrily denied the statement, maintained that it had been
always called Styx, and grew quite warm on the subject.
Since the government decreed the restoration of the ancient

STYX. 311

names, Greek patriotism lias taken a curiously topographi-
cal turn, and the identity of a site is maintained as posi-
tively as a political commonplace elsewhere. Few men
have patience to make themselves learned, but, failing
that, any one can be dogmatic and pedantic — and all are.
The village of Solos stands on a slope overlooking the
confluence of the so-called ' Styx' with the river Crathis,
the latter still retaining traces of its ancient name in
' Akrata.' Leaving Solos at 4 p.m. — an hour too late, as
our habit was — we followed a path which wound along the
slopes on the left bank of the Crathis. The earth here-
abouts seems to consist of broken shale, so that the tor-
rents which in winter-time pour down the hill-sides cut
deep gullies for themselves, and oppose a formidable ob-
stacle to the horse and his rider. Owing to the nature
of the soil, no permanent pathway can be obtained along
the steep banks, and the animals have to crawl as best
they may in and out of the ravine by means of a groove
in the bank on either side. In one of these places a horse
of our cavalcade lost his footing, scrambled, and was within
an ace of rolling down the steep. If he had, his rider's
travels would have come to an abrupt termination, and the
public would have been spared the infliction of the present
narrative. Crossing the main stream, we begin a steep climb
through pine woods, the path in places resembling a winding
stair with interlaced roots for steps. At 6.20 we reach the
crest of the ridge which, like the stream born in its bosom,
was called anciently by the name of Crathis. A little further
on we came to the edge of the descent on the southern
side, just where was a break in the forest; and suddenly
our eyes were greeted with a scene of which the charm

312 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

was enhanced by the surprise. Two thousand feet below
us lay a wide expanse of still water deep among the hills,
reflecting black pine woods and grey crags and sky now
crimson with sunset. Most beautiful at that moment, it
must be beautiful at all times. The glory of sunset clouds
and the mystery of evening shadows may enhance its love-
liness, but the light of common day cannot steal it all.
Here, in the heart of Arcadia and Peloponnese — a land
where lakes are few and far between, and water so pre-
cious and so sacred, that every pool had its legend — is a
lake seven miles long and seven miles broad, washing the
base of famous Cyllene, which yet has been sung by no
poet, mentioned by no historian, described by no geogra-
pher from Pausanias to the author of the Handbook.
Hitherto every spot had been familiar to us by name from
boyhood, and the sight of each caused a pleasurable sen-
sation like that which one feels at making a long-desired
acquaintance ; but now we felt the delight of discovery,
such as Livingstone may have felt when he found a new
Niagara in the Zambesi, or Pizarro when he ' stared at the
Pacific/ silent upon a peak in Darien. The French map,
it is true, marked a lake on the place ; but so the maps
give a lake Copais, which grows rice, cotton, and reeds,
and is such a lake as surrounds the Isle of Ely; and
as our books spoke only of a flat, partly marshy, plain,
we were not prepared for a real lake, worthy to be
matched for size with Windermere, and for beauty with
Lucerne. The mystery was fully explained the next day ;
meanwhile we made haste to descend. Ere long night
fell. The path was steep and stony, and the thick woods
overhead made it doubly night. However, about eight

STYX. 313

o'clock we emerged from the forest, and found our-
selves close to the convent where we were to sleep.
It would have been misplaced gratitude to thank our
stars for our safety. Indeed we were not yet at the
end of our journey. In proposing to pass the night
at the convent we had reckoned without our hosts.
The doors were fast barred ; the monks were asleep,
or at least feigned to be so. It could not be real
sleep, for they must have been roused by the vigilant
clamour of half a dozen sheep-dogs which, left loose
about the premises, bayed deep-mouthed defiance as we
approached. As usual, they only barked at us, and —
after the Auglo- Saxon custom of deodand, which, by the
way, was embodied also in the oldest criminal law of
Greece 1 — avenged themselves by biting the stones we
threw at them, thus proving the identity of dog-nature,
or the permanence of Cynic tradition, since the time of
Plato. 2 In vain we battered at the gate. The monks
were obdurate as their bolts and bars, so we were obliged
to move off, our attendants the while venting their wrath
in loud and emphatic terms, impugning the orthodoxy of
the fathers, and doubting, to say the least of it, their sal-
vation. We made our way in about half an hour, over
comparatively level and open ground, to the village of
Phonia. People wakened out of their first sleep are
naturally sulky, and we met with several successive re-
fusals. In vain the dragoman asserted that we were
' Lordoi,' that is to say, foreigners prepared to pay for
shelter — f the rank is but the guinea's stamp ' — neither

1 Demosth. c. Arisfocr. p. 645. 2 Republic, v. p. 469.

314 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

avarice nor charity availed to open the door. At last the
paredros or ( adjoint ' of the village was induced to take
us in, and save us from an al fresco night, -which high
among the mountains, and early in May, is much too
' fresco' to be pleasant. It was past midnight before we
got to bed.

CHAPTER XXII.

PHENEOS STYMPHALUS.

FOR many ages past, perhaps ever since the establish-
ment of the Adamite world, Poseidon seems to have
been disputing with Demeter the possession of the Phe-
neatic plain. In the Acropolis of the city was a bronze
statue of Poseidon-Hippios, 1 the same that smote the rock
of the Athenian Acropolis and brought forth a spring of
barren salt water, what time Athene beat him in the con-
test by inventing the olive. Close by, as it seems, was a
temple of Athene-Tritonia. Demeter was worshipped by
the grateful Pheneates with singular rites, under the three
titles of Eleusinia, Kidaria, 2 and Thesmia. There was an
artificial bed made for the river, fifty stades long and thirty
feet deep ; made, as the people told Pausanias, by Hercules
himself; but the obstinate stream had returned to its old
channel.' 'Most of all gods they honoured Hermes/
which indicates that, having found skill and labour impo-
tent to prevent, and prayers and sacrifice unavailing to
avert, the catastrophe which perpetually menaced them,
they had come to regard good luck as their best friend.

1 Pausanias, viii. 14, 4- The details which follow are derived from
this and the next chapter. _

2 Kidaria, probably from Mapis, an oriental head-dress, the
« Arcadian dance' so called is perhaps a dialectic variety of Map*.

316 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

The natural phenomena so vitally interesting to the
Pheneates themselves are not so much as mentioned by
any extant author before Strabo. We need not wonder
at this. Pheneos was an insignificant place in the midst
of horrid mountains, lying in no one's path. Its name is
mentioned once by Homer 1 without even an epithet, and
once, quite incidentally, by Herodotus. 2 Strabo 3 quotes
Eratosthenes as saying ( that the river Anias converts the
ground in front of the city of Pheneos into 'a fen, and falls
into certain narrow channels called Zerethra ; and when
these have been stopped up, sometimes the water overflows
on to the plain. This had occurred, according to Pliny, 4
five times. When Plutarch, if Plutarch it be, wrote the
treatise De Sera Numinis Vindicta, the whole plain
was, and had clearly for some years past been, under
water. 5 When Pausanias was there the plain was dry,
and from the vague manner in which he mentions the tra-
dition of a former inundation, we may infer that none had
occurred for some time.

After this Pheneos disappears from history. Year by

1 Iliad, ii. 605. " Herod, vi. 74.

3 Strabo, viii. 8, 5. 4 N. H. xxxi. 5.

ap ovv ovk aroTTwrepos tovtcov 6 AttoWcov ei (fievedras aTroWvat.
tovs vvv ep<ppd£as to (Bdpadpov kcli KaraKkvcras ttjv -^aipav a7raaav
ai/Tcov, on Trpb ^tXtcoi/ ira>v, a>s (paaiv, 6 'HpaKXrjs avacnrdcras rbv
Tplnoha top pa.vTiK.bv els <&evebv a.TrrjveyK€ ; no stress is to be laid on
the ' thousand years,' which is merely a round number. How was
Plutarch to know or to care in what year Hercules committed the
burglarious act in question ? Colonel Leake's inference that the story
of the submersion is untrue, ' otherwise the exact date would have
been known,' is unwarranted, and has been signally confuted by the
subsequent commentary of nature.

PHEXEOS — STYMPHALUS. 317

year its waters rose and fell unnoted, except by the rustics
thereby dwelling — Arcadian, Sclavonian, Albanian. It re-
appears in Colonel Leake's pages under the name of Phonia.
When he was there in 1806, the state of the plain seems
to have been much the same as what Eratosthenes de-
scribed as its normal condition — partly fen, partly fine dry
ground. Its subsequent fortunes were described to us by
our host, the paredros of the village, thus: In 182 1
the lake began to fill, till at last all the plain was flooded.
In the year 1833, ' the year of King Otho's arrival/ he
added significantly, as if there was something more than
mere coincidence in it, the waters broke away. In 1838
the lake began to fill again, and this time it was owing to
the malignity of the people of Lycuria, who stopped up
the Katabothra.

Our faith in the accuracy of our informant was some-
what shaken by our further inquiries. On the other side
of the lake, about fifty feet, as I guessed, above the pre-
sent water-level, there is a horizontal line running along
the slope of the hill exactly like a high- water mark.
' And/ said the paredros, ( that is the level which the
water reached in 1764 — time of the Venetians/ As the
f time of the Venetians' had come to an end forty-six
years before, we withheld our belief of the rest of the
statement. It is, no doubt, of this very mark that Pau-
sauias speaks. ' Once upon a time, when the water over-
flowed, they say that the ancient Pheneos was submerged /

1 Paus. viii. 14, 1. — It is obvious at a glance that we must read
KaTaKXvo-drjvai (as indeed Siebelis does) for the KaraXvOr^vai of the
1 2 m0 Tauchnitz. This is one of the worst texts ever printed (albeit ' ad
optimorum librorum fidem accurate edita'), and they have stereotyped it !

318 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

so that even in our time traces were left upon the moun-
tains up to which they say the water rose/ There is no
corresponding mark on the banks about Phonia, and the
probability is that it is not a water-mark after all. Col.
Leake attributes the appearance to the evaporation from
the water, but the discolourment so produced would surely
not terminate abruptly in a regular line. It is more
likely to be the mark of junction of two strata, the lower
of which is less adapted for vegetation. A personal in-
spection of the place woidd settle the controversy at once,
but the point did not seem to us then to be of sufficient
moment to warrant the detour.

Phonia is a village of scattered detached houses, on
gently sloping well-watered ground, with tall trees and
green fields and orchards all about it. Close to the lake
is a conical hill, the Acropolis of the old city. Pausanias,
indeed, describes the hill on which it stood as ' precipitous
on all sides ' (inroTO/iiog iravTa^oOav), which can hardly be
predicated of this hill ; but the slope is still very steep, and
was, no doubt, much steeper before the ruins of successive
buildings cumbered its base. At all events there are most
undeniable Hellenic walls, with three towers, still to be
traced. One of the towers is about fifteen feet square. Some
of the stones composing the wall are as much as three
feet long, and the masonry is as regular as that of Mes-
sene. On the eastern side is a platform, artificially levelled,
which may have been the site of a small temple, probably
that of Athene-Tritonia, the only one which is mentioned
by Pausanias as being in the Acropolis. On the top is a
ruined tower, of the ' time of the Venetians/ It is sad

PHENE0S STYMPHALUS. 319

to see at the edges of the lake the remains of the drowned
vineyards.

Leaving Phonia at half-past eight, on May 13, we rode
eastward along the margin of the lake, and crossing the
river Aroanius, or Anias, now a scanty stream, turned to-
wards the south, still keeping the lake close on our right
hand. We passed two ruined houses yet bearing the
name of a former Turkish occupant, * Khamil Bey.' Soon
turning to the left, we ascend the hills and reach a village
known by the not unfrequent name of Kastania, at a quarter
before twelve. We had ridden very slowly, the poor horses
having got nothing to eat the previous night but some
green Indian corn. Remounting at two, we descend a
steep path to a ruined khan, whence the road is through
level ground as far as the Stymphalian lake. As at Phonia
we expected to see a fen and found a lake, so at Stym-
phalus we expected a lake and found a field. Having
known and believed in the Stymphalian lake from child-
hood, we were disappointed to see it in rig and furrow.

The reason why Stymphalus was celebrated while
Pheneos remained obscure, is, I suppose, that it was a
thoroughfare not only for persons going from Sicyon and
Phlius to Orchomenos, but also for Corinthians, Athenians,
and Boeotians travelling by land to Olympia.

Turning to the right, we rode over corn and pasture in
search of the Katabothron. We soon came to a stream run-
ning swiftly in a channel ten or twelve feet deep, which it
has scooped for itself in the accumulated sand, hastening to
the cavern which yawns for it at the foot of an abrupt lime-
stone cliff. At the mouth of the cavern were wooden piles,

320 NOTES OF STUDY AND TltAVEL.

broken here and there by the violence of the current, the
object of which was to prevent any large solid substance
being carried in which might stop the passage and so inflict
upon Stymphalus the plague of Pheneos. 1 The grey face
of the rock tufted with red flowers, the dark cave, and the
turbid river, making its mad plunge from sunlight to dark-
ness, presented a striking picture to the eye and the imagi-
nation. It is not always that one can approach so near.
Colonel Leake says 2 ' The plain of Stymphalus is about
six miles in length, of which at present the lake occupies
about a third in the middle/ . . . . ' The natives do not
confirm the assertion of Pausanias 3 that in summer there
is no lake, though it is confined to a small circuit around
the Katabothra.' Certainly, when we were there, on the
13th of May, there was no semblance of a lake.

On the northern side of the plain, and parallel to its
length, is a platform of rock isolated, except at the western

1 Such a calamity did actually befal in Pausanias's own time (viii.
22, 6). It seems the Stymphalians had neglected to keep properly a
certain feast of Artemis. * So (ovv) some timber falling into the
cavern where the water goes down, prevented it getting away, and
they say that the plain became a lake for a space of forty stades'
(reading Teao-epaKovra for the impossible TerpaKoaLovs).

2 Travels in the Morea, iii. p. no.

3 The words of Pausanias (viii. 22, 3) seem to refer to a lake, small
even in winter and dry in summer, beside the source of the stream.
iv 8e 77/ 2rvp<fid\co xeipcbvos pev wpa \l/ivt]v re ov peydXrp/ f) Trrjyr), nai
air' avrrjs irorapbv noiel tov 2Tvp.(pa\ov' iv depei Se irpoaXip-vd^et. pev
ovbev eri } 7rorap.6s §e avrUa iaTLV dno rrjs 7rrjyrjs' ovros es x^H- - 7V S
Kareia-iv 6 irorapos k.tX. He evidently was there in summer only,
and perhaps misunderstood what the natives told him as to the site
of the lake. When he saw Stymphalus, clearly there was no lake at
the Katabothra either.

PHENEOS STYMPHALUS. 321

end, and rising abruptly from the level, about two hundred
yai'ds long by sixty broad, where it is broadest, and on an
average forty or fifty feet in height. Along the outer edge
of the summit may be traced a wall of partly polygonal
and partly Hellenic masonry, which has evidently sur-
rounded the whole platform. It is most perfect on the
side towards the plain, where the basements of several
towers are still extant. At the western end the walls ter-
minate in a large square tower. The rock, inside the
circuit, bears frequent traces of human occupation, having
been artificially levelled for building or for pathways. The
eastern extremity has evidently been the site of a temple,
and has been separated from the rest by a wall. Towards
the south, too, outside the wall, the rock has been
escarped and hewn into ledges for seats or steps. About
the middle, just below the rock on the south side, is a
fountain, behind which a semicircular recess has been hewn,
perhaps — I speak from memory — thirty feet in diameter.
On the same side may be traced in the plain the founda-
tions of walls both at right angles and parallel to the face of
the rock. On the north side, towards the hills, runs from
the great tower before-mentioned, at right angles to the
direction of the rock, a wall or causeway nearly twelve
feet wide, and which, after about three hundred yards, ter-
minates in a tower and what seems to have been a gateway.
No allusion to these remains, which are assuredly for
the most part of very great antiquity, is to be found in
Pausanias. Either he was suffering from a fit of laziness
when visiting Stymphalus, or from a lapse of memory
when writing about it. All that he says is in substance
this : —

322 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

' The Styinphalians are said to have been originally set-
tled in a different part of the country, not in the present
city. There was a legend that in old Stymphalus Teme-
nus nursed Hera, &c. ; but no monument connected with it
is found in the present city, which contains nothing worth
mentioning but the fountain from which Hadrian carried
the water by aqueduct to Corinth, and an old temple of
Artemis/

As to the position of the ' fountain ' here alluded to
there can be no question. It is where the river Stym-
phalus issues from the foot of the mountain, somewhat
more than a mile, as I suppose, from the ruins on the
rock. On the way thither we pass several scattered re-
mains belonging to one or more temples. I remember, in
particular, a large fragment of a cornice, of which the ma-
terial was the same as that of a ruined church near it,
beautiful white limestone. The church has been very
large, and seems to have been built in the best times of
Byzantine art. It appears to have had a precinct en-
closed with walls, and perhaps formed part of a convent.

Colonel Leake says : f The ancient town surrounded the
projecting cape, and extended from thence to the source of
the river inclusive/ With this I cannot agree. It would
suppose Stymphalus to have been one of the largest cities
in the Peloponnese, Avhereas there is every reason to
infer, from its insignificance in history, that it was one of
the smallest. Its name even does not occur in the index
to Mr. Grote's History. Strabo 1 mentions it as one of

Strabo, viii. 8, 2. — The other cities are Mantinea, Orchomenos,
Hersea, Kleitor, Methydricm, Kapkyeis, Aftenalos, Kyntetha, and

PHENEOS STYMPHALUS.

323

the cities which in his time had ceased to exist, or of
which scanty traces were left. If the old Stymphalus — for
such the rock above-mentioned unquestionably was — had
been included within the walls of the town when Pausanias
was there, how could he have failed to speak of it ? The
truth, I imagine, was this. The Stymphalians had aban-
doned the ancient site long before his time, and removed
to the base of the hills between the fountain and the place
where now stands the ruined church. Probably the Stym-
phalus of his day was little more than a village. Whatever
were the reason, he seems to have taken very slight in-
terest in the question; and when told that the old
Stymphalus was ' in another place/ acquiesced without
further inquiry. As I have suggested in a previous note,
he seems to have been also mistaken as to the position of
the lake.

Our curiosity was damped and our investigations
shortened by a heavy shower of raiu, the forerunner, as
we fancied, of a wet night, so we made haste to depart.
The sky was again clear when we reached, at half-past
six, the Albanian hamlet of Khaliani, where we were to
sleep.

Pheneos. These f) oi>/ceV elo-iv, rj poXis avrav "x v l 4> a '<' v(Tat *""
arjfxfla. Teye'a 5' en fierpicos avfifxtvei.

Y 2

CHAPTER XXIII.

ALBANIANS, SCLAVONIANS, AND HELLENES.

TT'HALIANI lies in a little level plain — a sheltered
J -^- nook among the bases of Cyllene. The steep slopes
of the lower hills, breaking away here and there in scaurs
of red earth and seamed at intervals with capricious tor-
rent-tracks, are clothed for the most part with holly-leaved
ilex and other shrubs, whose rich brown tint is now varied
and brightened with the fresh green shoots of spring-
time. Above these soars the great mountain, visible to
the very summit. "Where all other vegetation has ceased,
a scattered forest of black pines has rooted itself in the
grey limestone. From among the pines rises an irregular
cone, utterly bare. In the manner of an ancient poet,
one might imagine that around the summit, consecrated
to Hermes, a magic circle had been drawn, beyond which
the spirits of the wood were forbidden to intrude. In
the rifts a remnant of snow is still lying, like veins of
quartz — the last shreds of the winter's robe which a short
month ago had not a rent in it. As we rode on our way
towards S icy on we had this monarch of Arcady con-
stantly in view. From no point does he look more regal
than from Khaliani.

The hamlet designated by this sounding name consists
of about half-a-dozen houses, in the largest of which we
were lodged. There are two rooms in it — one above, one

ALBANIANS, SCLAVOXIANS, AND HELLENES. 325

below. The latter is half underground, and serves, I
suppose, as storehouse for the less perishable household
and agricultural stuff; the upper chamber is accessible by
a flight of steps. Three-fourths of it is used as a granary,
but at one end is a hearthstone, and about it a small
space kept clear for the use of the family, who sleep
around with feet towards the fire like the spokes of a
Avheel. I have said elsewhere that the Albanians have,
as a general rule, lighter hair and complexion than the
inhabitants of the plains. They are also, I think, more
strongly built, and have more regular features ; but their
faces are not lighted up by the dark, keen, southern eye
which is in itself beauty. Exposed as they are to rough
weather and hard work almost from their cradle, the
young people, and young women especially, have little of
youthful delicacy in tint or form, and no youthful supple-
ness in gesture or motion. The dress of the men, if
rude, is picturesque enough : kilt and greaves, and sheep-
skin jacket, not unlike the dress of a figure in the fore-
ground of Velasquez's ' Adoration of the Shepherds/ in
the National Gallery. The kilt is of linen, and has once
been white ; it is never changed, and consequently never
washed, except in an occasional shower.

The costume of the women is of a still more savage
simplicity. A sack of thick Aroollen stuff, reaching from
neck almost to ankle, wraps them formless in its fold. It
must, indeed, be a superb beauty that could triumph over
such a toilet.

I have already said 1 that these colonists from Albania

1 Page 252.

3.26 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

are exceedingly anxious to be reckoned as Hellenes.
Neither is there now any antipathy on the other side
to prevent this desired amalgamation. Though originally
unopposed or even welcomed immigrants, difference of
blood, language, and habits fostered for a long time secret
animosities between them and their lowland neighbours,
of which the Turks cunningly, or perhaps merely in-
stinctively, availed themselves, and not unfrequently em-
ployed Albanians as agents and instruments of oppression
against their fellow-Christians. Some of them had even
embraced Mahonimedanism. The conspicuously gallant
part, however, which they played in the "War of Liberation
has obliterated all recollections of old grievances, and the
adoption of the Albanian as the national costume of
regenerate and rechristened Hellas is an official mark of
complete reconciliation. We shall probably find the
grandsons of these Albanians calling themselves Epami-
nondas, Phocion, and so on, and bragging of their glorious
ancestors as do those descendants of multifarious bar-
barians who now call themselves Hellenes — a name to
which they have little better title than the modern Mexi-
cans or the modern Britons to theirs.

The permanence of the old language is the one point
of difference in their favour, but in a question of race
this does not tell for much. The language spoken by an
uneducated Greek scarcely resembles the ancient tongue
more nearly than the language of the Spaniard or the
Provencal resembles Latin ; and if the modern dialects
of Spain and Provence had not been stereotyped by long
civilization and literary culture, it would have been almost
as easy to bring them back to the old grammatical forms

ALBANIAN'S, SCLAVONIA.VS, AND HELLENES.

327

as to restore to the modern Romaic the inflexions and
vocabulary of ancient Greece. And yet how small, we
may he sure, the infusion of Roman blood in the Pro-
veD9al and Spanish people !

Moreover, no other nation has suffered under circum-
stances so unfavourable as Greece, ever since the loss of
its independence, now nearly twenty-two centuries ago.
Besides continuous misgovernment and chronic disunion,
the successive pestilences which, coming from the east,
have scourged Europe, seem to have spent upon Greece
the first force of their malignity ; and successive hordes of
barbarians, repelled from the frontiers of stronger states,
have found here an unresisting prey. Even before the
sixth century of our era, Sclavonian colonies had begun to
settle in the deserted lands of that peninsula, the remotest
and least accessible of Greek provinces, which was after-
wards to be called by a word of their own— Morra, Morea.
The great plague of 746 cleared the way for more immi-
grants. ' All Hellas .and Peloponnese was made Sclavish,
and became barbarian when the plague desolated the earth
in the days when Constantine Copronymus swayed the
sceptre of the Roman empire/ This is the testimony
of Constantine Porphyrogenitus/ himself emperor. In his
time the Sclavonians had assumed Greek names and begun
to intermarry, even with the imperial house j but there
was, it seems, still some distinction between them and the
Romans (for so the Greeks called themselves) in com-
plexion or feature. Now such distinction is entirely

Quoted by Mr. Finlay: Medieval Greece and Trehizond, p. 21.

328 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

obliterated, and the ' Hellenes ' ' of Sclavonian descent
do not differ from the other Hellenes in person or in
idiom.

There was, however, yet another cause in operation
long before the time of Goth or Hun or Avar, and more
potent than them all for corrupting the purity of Hellenic
blood — I mean slavery. The earliest glimpse which we
get of that ancient people shows us slavery in all forms,
domestic and predial, rooted among the national habits
as an immemorial institution, and an active slave trade
carried on without question and without stigma, as if it
w r ere a law of human nature. Long after the stigma had
been attached to the traffic it continued to flourish, and
indeed only ceased at last when, besides being discre-
ditable, it came also to be unprofitable. Slavery itself
did not perish in Greece till the tenth century after
Christ. Century after century the population of ancient
Hellas was recruited by large and frequent importations
of Thracians and Scythians ; and there can be no doubt
that, in the zenith of Hellenic power, the free population
was far outnumbered by the servile — the Hellenes by the
barbarians. Even then the purity of race, if it ever had

1 If the terms Hellas and Hellenes be considered as merely
' geographical expressions,' and not asserting a claim of descent from
the ancient Hellenes, there can he no objection to them. In the time
of Pausanias the word Hellenes was no longer applied to all the race,
but only to the inhabitants of a district nearly conterminous with the
modern kingdom of Otho. In this sense the word was used by the
Byzantine historians, who always affected classical phraseology, long
after it had been disused by the people themselves. Mr. Finlay men-
tions that a citizen of Constantinople would have been insulted by
being called a Greek or Hellene instead of ' a Roman.'

ALBANIANS, SCLAVONIANS, AND HELLENES. 329

any meaning as applied to the Hellenes, was fast becoming
a fiction. The barbarian origin of this and that so-called
1 Athenian 5 supplied the comic poets with an inexhaustible
theme. Some even of the greatest Athenians did not
disdain to intermarry with, or refuse to acknowledge their
descent from Thracian and Scythian families. Miltiades,
Thucydides, Demosthenes, are examples to the point. No
institutions, municipal or political, could be of any avail
to prevent a gradual admixture of alien blood and an ul-
timate confusion of races. Quid leges sine moribus vanse
proficiunt ? and what ' morals/ we may ask, can there be
co-existent with slavery? In ancient Greece the morals,
so far as they concern the present question, were more
lax, and the retro-active evils of slavery greater, than in
modern America. And why ? Because in America the
differences of race, as shown in complexion, feature, and
mind, between master and slave, are so great as to pro-
duce a mutual repugnance, and to ensure detection and ex-
posure of secret sins by stamping all offspring with a brand
of affiliation. It was not so in Greece. The great majority
of Greek slaves came of races physically as noble as their
masters, and of intellects not naturally so acute, but
capable of a high degree of refinement and culture. The
best and most profitable slaves were those who became
most rapidly Hellenized. The Davus and Syra who
waited behind the couch of Mecsenas spoke Attic and
sang Greek songs to Greek music. Thus society in
G reece wanted the safeguards which protect it in America.
It may, indeed, be laid down as a general rule, that 'the
retro-active mischiefs of slavery ' (as I have ventured to
call them) are greater in proportion to the relationship of

330 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

race between master and slave. According as the national
sin is more shameful and flagrant, so is the retribution
more speedy and terrible.

These arguments, drawn from historical facts, make it,
to any unprejudiced mind, perfectly certain that the pro-
portion of Hellenic blood which now runs in the veins of
King Otho's subjects is infinitesimally small. Those who,
in spite of these facts, maintain the opposite thesis are
either Greeks or Ionians, actuated by a pardonable national
vanity, or foreigners anxious to combat a doctrine which
stultifies their own Philhellenism. The writers and
speakers on this side whom I have read and heard, judi-
ciously avoid historical ground, and support their position,
first, by insisting on the permanence of the language, and,
secondly, by asserting the uniformity of type, physical
and moral, which characterizes the present Greeks, and
the resemblance of that type to the ancient Greek.

First, as to the language : The fact of its permanence,
however corrupted, is worthy of all admiration, but, pro-
perly interpreted, warrants no inference as to the genealogy
of those who speak it. A Hellenist is not necessarily a
Hellene. The genius and enterprise of the ancient Hel-
lenes, which won for them their long-continued pre-emi-
nence in colonization, commerce, and letters, ensured also
the adoption of their language as the earliest lingua franca
of the Levant. When the interests of different nations
come to be closely connected, and intercourse frequent be-
tween them, then there grows up an imperious necessity
for such a lingua franca for bargains in peace and parley
in war. Even in the time of Herodotus this want had
begun to be felt, and he found in the most distant cities

ALBANIANS, SCLAVONIANS, AND HELLENES. 331

which he visited in Africa and in Asia Hellenist inter-
preters. The conquests of Alexander added a new impulse
to the Hellenistic tendencies of the world. After his
death, Alexandria, Pergamos, Antioch, &c, became the
capitals of kingdoms called Greek, not because either sove-
reigns or subjects were of Greek blood, but because Greek
was the language they had adopted in common. These
nations, I repeat, may fitly be called Hellenist, but not
Hellenic, just as the peoples of France and Spain may be
called ' Romance/ but not Roman. The Hellenistic
tongue absorbed and overpowered a multitude of local
jargons, and converted each new capital from a very Babel
into a ' city of articulate- speaking men.' The most ob-
stinately tenacious of all sects found it necessary for the
general understanding of their own holy books to have
them translated into this master-language— that language
which obtained its crowning triumph when, three centu-
ries later, in it were delivered the last oracles of God.
The New Testament consecrated what was before the
language of art, literature, and commerce as the language
also of religion ; thus, on the one hand, providing for its
still wider extension, and on the other, securing it against,
or at all events arresting the progress of corruption. To
the children of the orthodox church, of whatever race,
the language of the Gospels and of the Liturgy was the
mother-tongue— the use of which was almost an article of
faith from which, to their immortal honour and the credit
of our common Christianity, neither persecution, nor sword,
nor any other creature could separate them.

Thus, while I deny that the existence of the Hellenistic
language warrants any claim of kindred with the great

33.2 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

people who spoke it in its earliest form, or the great poets
and sages who cultivated it, I affirm that it proves for the
moderns a far nobler genealogy, and vindicates for each
successive generation the praise of faithfulness, constancy,
and courage.

I come now to the second proposition, viz. : That the
modern Greeks are characterized by uniformity of type,
and that type resembling the ancient. The first part of
this proposition is sometimes implicitly denied by the ad-
vocates for the second, when they affirm that the islanders
especially resemble the ancient Greeks in features. But
I waive this point, and am content to assume that there
is perfect unanimity among the advocates for both.

It must be premised that all such general assertions
are very easily made or contradicted, but not very easily
proved or refuted. In such cases the eye sees not only
what it brings with it the power of seeing, but also
that which it brings with it the desire to see.

And, first, to confine ourselves to the supposed physical
resemblance. What were the national characteristics of
the ancient Greeks in face and form ? What means have
we of forming a judgment ? Here literature stands us
in no stead, and we can only fall back upon the remains
of ancient art, statues and friezes and metopes, and
cameos and coins, where we have on the one hand ideal
representations of gods and heroes, and on the other por-
traits of individual men. The ideal faces from the time
of Phidias downwards all conform to one well-known
type, of which the low forehead, the straight nose in a
line with the forehead, and the short upper lip are the
chief characteristics. The archaic type as seen in the

ALBANIANS, SCLAVONIANS, AND HELLENES. 333

iEginetan marbles and in the Athene of the coins is
somewhat different. The difference lies chiefly in the ex-
pression, and is unimportant to our present inquiry,
because it is due either to want of manual skill or inten-
tional imitation of antique rudeness. With regard to the
portraits, which belong for the most part to the latest
period of art, we must take into consideration several
facts before we can argue upon them at all.

In the first place, many of those which bear the names
of illustrious Greeks are either ideal or portraits of
Romans which have been inscribed with Greek names in
Greek letters in order to increase their value in the market
by Italian owners or vendors in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, at the revival of learning, art, connoisseurship,
and forgery. Secondly, we must bear in mind the ten-
dency of the portrait-maker to flatter his subject by
assimilating his features as much as possible to the
divine and heroic type. Making these allowances, the
genuine Greek faces will be found very various in cha-
racter, and not resembling the ideal type at all more closely
than a collection of portraits of Italians, Spaniards, or
any southern people at the present day. But any con-
clusion must be dubious when drawn from such dubious
and scanty data.

Among the modern Greeks, so far as my observation
went — and I was constantly observing them with this
particular view — one sees very few faces which recal the
type of ideal beauty. Some exceptional instances may
be found in all countries ; but they are always rare, and
not less rare in Greece than elsewhere. The most
striking examples which I noted were an Albanian shep-

334 NOTES OF STUDY AXD TRAVEL.

herd near Athens and a rustic at Zante. For the
exquisite proportions and muscular development of ancient
statues we can find no parallel in men as they now are, for
the modern Greek wraps himself up in elaborate folds,
and never takes the trouble to undress. We are more
likely to find living antitypes of the Apollo and Antinous
in England, where the young men are animated with the
passion of the old Greeks for gymnastic exercises far more
than their soi-disant descendants and namesakes.

So much for the physical question. With regard to
the moral qualities, we are assured that the modern
Greeks resemble the ancient in their virtues and in their
failings, whether as civilians or soldiers — as soldiers in
their fitful courage and sudden panics ; as civilians in their
enterprising spirit, their versatility, their patience, fru-
gality and sobriety, in their selfishness, unscrupulousness
and cunning.

To take these seriatim. It is quite true that, so long
as the wars of the ancient Greeks were waged by their
own free citizens in person, ' fitful courage and sudden
panic' did characterize their armies, except only the Spar-
tan, as they characterize all half-trained and half-disciplined
bodies of men, to whatever race they belong. The raw
levies of America ran away at Bladensburg, and the raw
levies of England refused to advance at the Redan. But
the Spartans, who were veteran soldiers all, showed no
such weakness. The Greek mercenaries of later times
serving under Cyrus or Alexander were remarkable for
steadiness in the field.

Again, the modern Greeks show no aptitude for com-
bined enterprises ' of great pith and moment/ such as

ALBANIANS, SCLAVONIAXS, AND HELLENES. 335

distinguished the better days of the old Hellas j but only
for petty traffic and individual gain, in which the mixed
population of the Levantine shores have been ever active.
This is enterprise of a much lower stamp than that which
of old colonized the coasts of the Mediterranean with free
and nourishing cities. In this sense the Jews and the
hybrid Ionians and Maltese are quite as enterprising, as
versatile, and as patient as the Greeks.

Frugality and sobriety are virtues not peculiar to race,
but to climate. All the southern nations — Spaniards and
Italians and Hindoos — are sober and frugal.

The vices which are attributed to the Greeks are vices
developed by oppression, and could not with justice be
charged upon the ancient Greeks as a people so long as
they were free. They are the arts whereby weakness
baffles and eludes violence. In the animal world nature
furnishes analogous qualities to the creature preyed upon
as a defence against the talon and the claw.

To sum up all : I hold, first, that such homogeneity as
there is in the modern Greek nation is due not to purity
of race, but to the combined action of other causes — fre-
quent intercourse, similar habits, and identity of climate and
language. We see, in the case of the United States, how
rapidly such causes operate in fusing into one people with
marked characteristics, physical and moral, a multitude of
very various origin and descent. Secondly, whatever resem-
blance may be traced between the ancient and modern
Greeks is owing to the similarity of external circumstance ;
and however many minor qualities they may exhibit in
common, the moderns show no spark of the mighty
genius of the ancients. That genius has left its stamp

336 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

upon every art and science, upon every branch of letters
and province, of thought. Modern Greece has produced
no great artist, nor statesman, nor general, nor poet, nor
philosopher. 1

1 I should be sorry to depreciate the merits of Koraes, Soutzos,
Trikoupi, and others who have deserved well of their country and of
literature ; but there is no modern Greek ' great' in the sense in
which many ancient Greeks, many Germans, French, English, and
Italians are great.

CHAPTER XXIV.

SICYON.

TTTE left Khaliani at a quarter-past six a.m. The path
lay along a wide, bare valley, traversed at intervals
by the torrents which descend from the eastern flank of
Cyllene. The mountain was visible nearly all the way on
the left, not cone-shaped, as it appeared from Khaliani,
but terminating in a jagged ridge. We passed another
amphibious lake, like that of Stymphalus, but much
smaller. By-aud-bye we fell in with a group of peasants
of both sexes and all ages, headed by a priest marching
in slow procession, and stopping at each man's field to
chant a Kyrie Eleison and invoke a blessing upon their
crops. The whole way is a gradual ascent ; and about ten
o'clock we reached the summit of a ridge of hills running
east and west and commanding a splendid prospect of both
the gulfs and the isthmus between. The thin and arid soil
produces nothing but a few scattered stunted oaks and a
scanty undergrowth of familiar shrubs. The descent on
the northern side is more rapid, down a path cut deep
between chalky banks and glowing like a furnace in the
mid-day sun. Here and there I observed traces of an old
road. The monotony of the journey was relieved by an
occasional assault upon a snake surprised as he lay basking
in the heat. One of them was about a yard long with a

z

338 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

disproportionately large head, spotted black and grey, and,
according to the testimony of his destroyer, ttoXv kuko,
that is, ' very venomous/

At half-past twelve we came to a ruined bridge, pro-
bably ancient, at the bottom of a ravine, and then as-
cended the right bank by a steep path. Along the crest
of the hill might be traced fragments of a Hellenic wall
— the western wall of Sicyon.

A finer site for a city could not well be imagined. The
mountains hereabouts fall down towards the sea not in a
continuous slope, but in a succession of abrupt descents
and level terraces — a series of landslips, as it were, so that
green smooth pastures alternate with white steep scaurs.
These are severed at intervals by deep rents and gorges,
down which the mountain torrents make their way to the
sea, spreading the spoils of the hills over the flat plain two
miles in breadth, which lies between the lowest cliffs and
the shore. Between two such gorges, on a smooth expanse
of tableland overlooking the plain, stood the ancient
Sicyon. On every side are abrupt cliffs, and even at the
southern extremity there is a lucky transverse rent sepa-
rating this from the next plateau. The ancient walls may
be seen at intervals along the edge of the cliffs on all sides.
The entire circuit of the city cannot have been much less
than four miles. In shape it approximated to a triangle,
with the apex towards the hills and the base fronting the
sea. Within the walls there is a higher and lower level.
A line of rocks parallel to the base separates the triangle
into two unequal parts, of which the southern is higher
and smaller than the northern. In the most flourishing
days of Sicyon the whole space thus included in the forti-
fications was called Acropolis, there being a lower town

sic yon. 339

on the plain at the foot of the cliffs, and a seaport as
well. In 303 b.c. Demetrius Poliorcetes, with the con-
sent of the Sicyonians themselves, destroyed the seaport,
which was incapable of being defended by the diminished
population, and transported them to the Acropolis, which
was amply sufficient for them all. The upper platform
was then called Acropolis, as probably it had been in
earlier times, when the dimensions of the city were coex-
tensive with those of the city of Demetrius. In the his-
torical times Sicyon was never more than a second-rate
city ; but its importance in a military point of view made
its possession coveted by more powerful contending neigh-
bours, so that it suffered all the evils without the glories
of war. Its importance as a fortress arose from its natu-
ral strength and abundant supply of water, and from
its proximity to Corinth and the rich plain which lay
between. 1

It is twice mentioned in the Iliad as a city under the
dominion of Agamemnon : ' Sicyon, where Adrastus was
the first king/- and f Sicyon with wide dancing-places.' 3
This last is, like ' well-built/ a familiar epithet paid by
way of compliment to those cities which have no peculiar
and characteristic adjective of their own ; were it less
common, we might well suppose that the level site of

1 The description of Diodorus (xx. 102, 3) applies to the site even
now, excepting that the ' abundance of water' is diminished by the
choking up of the underground aqueducts, and that corn-fields have
taken the place of ' gardens.' — 6 yap rijs aKponoXeas TrepifioXos
inineSos cov koX piyas Kprjpvols dva-irpoaiTois irepiiX eTal TiavrayoQiv,
Zio-re pi]8ap?i bivaadai. pr) X avas npoaayeiv, ex el S * Kai ^dos vSarcoi/
e£ ov KfjTreias Sa\|nXe7s KarfaKevaaav.

2 II. ii. 572. s lb. xxiii. 299.

310 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

Sicyon would make it here especially appropriate. At
any rate the insouciant Hippocleicles did not avail himself
of his opportunities when he chose the dinner-table for
the memorable performances related with such unction by
the Father of History. 1

The reign of Cleisthenes was probably the culminating
point of Sicyonian power. He was strong enough to
wage war with the Argives, and was anxious to assert in
every way the independence of his city. The means
which he adopted for this end are wonderfully characte-
ristic of the early days of Greece. He forbade the
rhapsodists from chanting Homer's poems, ' because
they glorified Argos and the Argives/ and also, as we
may suppose, because Sicyon was represented as subordi-
nate to Agamemnon ; and he wanted to turn Adrastus out
of his heroum in the market-place because he was an
Argive. From this we see, first, how undoubtingly the
Greeks of that day accepted the epic tales for literal
positive fact ; and, secondly, how completely not only the
Dorians themselves, but their enemies also, identified
them with the Achseans whom they had conquered and
supplanted. And if, as is supposed, Cleisthenes was
himself an Achsean supported by the favour of his
brother Achseans against the Dorian aristocracy, in insult-
ing the so-called Argive hero Adrastus he was in reality
insulting one of his own race. It was as if Owen Glen-
dower should have forbidden his minstrels to sing of
Arthur on the ground that he was an Englishman. Not
being able to expel Adrastus from the market-place, he
introduced his bitter enemy Melanippus into the strongest

1 Herod, vi. 129.

SICYON. 311

part of the Prytancion, so that the latter hero might he
able to oust the former from his defenceless post in the
market-place below. 1

The market-place of which Herodotus speaks was doubt-
less on the lower level of the upper city, where in his own
time was to be seen the stoa of Cleisthenes, built from
the spoils of Cirrha. 2 The Prytaneion was, I conceive,
the upper level, which constituted a fortress in itself, and
was set apart for the residence of the sovereign, as the
dukes of Ferrara had a fortress in the midst of their city.
Probably ' Prytanis' was the official title borne not only
by the Sicyonian but also by other despots of the time.

Colonel Leake says: ' It appears from several authorities
that when Sicyon was in the height of its power the
walls extended to the sea. It must then have been at
least eight miles in circumference/ 3 If ever the city
had this extent, it was probably in the reign of Clei-
sthenes. But I do not know what are the several autho-
rities here referred to. Neither Herodotus nor Thucy-
dides gives any hint of the long walls of Sicyon, and
it is certain from incidents related by Xenophon in
his Hellenica that the seaport of Sicyon was not so con-
nected with the upper city in the time of Epaminondas.
Sixty years later we have the distinct statement of Dio-
dorus that there was a vacant interval between the two. 4
Under the high-handed Cleisthenes, the ally of Athens,

1 Herod, v. 67.

* It was still extant in Pausanias's time, ii. 9, 6.

s Travels in the Morea, iii. 365.

4 Diod. xx. 102, 2. — tiff ol piv (ppovpol (Tvveainecrov ds Ttfv

a.K.p6ivo\iv, 6 de A^/xjjrptos rrjs Trokecos Kvptevaas tqv perat-v tottov tu>v

oiKiSiv ical ttjs aKpas nare'i^.

342

NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

the Acropolis may have been connected with the seaport,
as in aftertimes that of Athens itself was joined to the
Pirseus j but neither Corinth nor the other states of Pelo-
ponnese would have suffered a second-rate town, to which
rank Sicjon soon after sank, thus to block up the road
along the coast.

After the outer walls, almost the only remains of
ancient Sicyon are to be found along the line of low
cliffs separating the higher from the lower platform.
Entering from the west, we come first to the stadium,
the upper end of which occupies a fold or recess in
the line of rocks, partly natural partly excavated ; and
in order to give it the requisite length, it is prolonged at
the lower end by an artificial platform, supported on three
sides by walls of masonry which, though polygonal, makes
an approach to regular courses. Of these courses I
counted twelve, and the walls are in all about eighteen
feet high. All incline somewhat inwards, so as better to
resist the lateral pressure of the earth. Close by there is
a little cave in the rock, and about it hewn seats or steps,
as at Stymphalus. Very near the stadium, towards the
east, is the theatre, of which the circular part, as well as
the basement of the stage wall, is excavated out of the
rock. From the rock, on either side, project masses of
masonry, intended to prolong the seats of the spectators
to the stage wall, which crossed them at right angles.
These are traversed by spacious arched passages opposite
to each other. Now, these walls are composed entirely
of large stones without cement, and belong unquestion-
ably to the best Hellenic period — the best, that is, in a
masonic point of view. There is every probability that
they were erected by Demetrius, the benefactor of Sicyon,

SICYON. 313

if, indeed, they be not of a still remoter date ; so that we
find that the Greeks were acquainted with the mystery of
throwing an arch at least as early as the end of the fourth
century B.C. If it had then been a recent discovery it
would have created a sensation, and we should have heard
of it, for that is precisely the period as to which we have
the fullest knowledge of all that interested the Greek
people. It is not mentioned because it had been known
from time immemorial, and therefore did not awake any
one's curiosity or wonder.

On the upper level above the theatre are two or three

altars hewn out of the living rock, with a hollow on the

top to receive the fire, and a basement of successive steps.

On the lower ground, near where we may suppose the

market-place to have been, is a Roman building almost

perfect, with the exception of the roof, divided into several

small chambers. Probably it was intended for baths, as

the chambers are too small to admit the supposition of its

having been a public building. If the rubbish which

cumbers the floor were cleared away, the point would be

set at rest. Near the little hamlet of Vasilika, in the

northern cliff, is a gully up which a steep and narrow

path gives access from the plain below. Here, doubtless,

was one of the gates of the city; not, however, the sacred

gate, as that probably led to the sanctuary of Titane, the

especial object of Sicyonian veneration, 1 and was therefore

on the landward side. Following the edge of this cliff,

towards the east, we come to a church, in and about

which are several fragments of antiquity, part of the shaft

of a large Doric column, some triglyphs, and a cornice of

1 Pausanias, ii. n, 5.

344 NOTES OF STUDY AND TRAVEL.

white marble. Hard by is a kind of tunnel wide enough
for O" , man to pass, of which the lower end is half way
down the cliff. It is still unobstructed, and seems to
have been a kind of postern. That it is ancient appears
from some foundations of walls round the upper outlet.

About five o'clock we reluctantly quitted this most inte-
resting site. At the foot of the hill are some scattered
fragments and the wheelmarks of an old road. We
crossed the Asopus by a modern bridge. It was probably
on the plain near the banks of the river that the hippo-
drome was situated, though of course no trace is left of
it. An ode of Pindar, wrongly classed among the Ne-
means — the ninth — refers to a victory gained in a chariot
race at the games of Sicyon, calk a Pythian, ' which
Adrastus instituted in honour ot x^cebus beside the
streams of Asopus/ 1

The plain between Sicyon and Corinth, in old days
proverbial for its fertility, is now sparsely planted with
vine and olive, and sown in patches with corn. It appears
to have owed its renown rather to careful tillage than
natural richness. It doubtless well repaid the trouble of
the culture when it had a populous city at either extre-
mity, affording a ready market for its produce.

About sunset we reached Corinth.

1 Pindar, Nem. ix. 9.

THE END.

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